


Principles of Fluid Dynamics

by hannasus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Banter, Bickering, Constructed Family, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Getting the Band Back Together, Post-Movie, Science Bros, Snark, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no such thing as the Avengers. Not according to SHIELD, anyway. They’re not a superhero team, they’re not part of the agency anymore, and they’re definitely not sitting around waiting to save the world again, so don’t go getting any ideas about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
_“Fluids are composed of molecules that collide with one another and solid objects. The continuum assumption, however, considers fluids to be continuous, rather than discrete. Consequently, properties such as density, pressure, temperature, and velocity are taken to be well-defined at infinitesimally small points, and are assumed to vary continuously from one point to another.”_  
  


Once upon a time there were a bunch of strangers with some freaky superpowers who came together to save the world from an alien invasion. After they were finished saving the world they all went out for shawarma together. And then they went their separate ways.

The end.

Or not. 

There’s no such thing as the Avengers. Not according to SHIELD, anyway.

It doesn’t matter that the news won’t fucking shut up about them. Doesn’t matter that the whole goddamn country is obsessed with them. Doesn’t matter that there are two competing movie projects in development, a toy line that Wal-Mart can’t keep on the shelves, and a Facebook fan page with 12 million “Likes.”

SHIELD’s official position is that the Avengers never existed in the first place and they sure as hell don’t exist now. 

If you can work up the nerve to ask Nick Fury about it he’ll tell you the same thing he told the president: Thor’s back in Asgard for good, Tony Stark’s busy rebuilding that phallic fucking tower of his, Steve Rogers is hiding in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, and Bruce Banner just plain disappeared. They’re not a superhero team, they’re not part of the agency anymore, and they’re definitely not sitting around waiting to save the world again, so don’t go getting any ideas about that.

“You’re both fired,” Fury said.

Clint stared at him. “The fuck?” 

Natasha pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything.

“Your termination is effective immediately. In the interest of concluding your relationship with SHIELD on an amicable basis the agency is providing each of you with a generous separation package.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Clint said.

“Your severance is conditional upon you signing a release of claims maintaining confidentiality and a smooth, professional transition.”

“ _What the actual fuck?_ ” 

Fury glared at Clint with a single, steely eye. “Son, are you gonna shut the fuck up and listen to my termination speech or are you gonna get my _boot_ up your _ass?_ ”

Clint snapped his mouth shut and crossed his arms stubbornly across his chest.

Fury sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Can either of you tell me what your primary occupational specialty is?”

“Clandestine human intelligence gathering and counterintelligence operations,” Natasha supplied stoically.

“ _Clandestine_ operations,” Fury repeated. “You turn on a TV lately, Barton? Your faces are on every channel, including the motherfucking Cartoon Network. My nephew keeps pestering me to get your goddamn autograph. I’m afraid SHIELD just doesn’t have a use for you anymore.”

“But we helped save the world!” Clint protested feebly.

“And we thank you for your service,” Fury told them, sliding a pair of thick packets across the desk. “Enjoy civilian life.”

“You can’t honestly tell me you’re surprised,” Natasha said, half a bottle of tequila later.

After they’d completed all their SHIELD exit interviews and cleaned out their desks and lockers, they’d ended up at a divey Mexican restaurant with greasy enchiladas and a surprisingly excellent selection of tequilas.

“Not really,” Clint admitted grudgingly. “Guess I don’t blame ’em for not trusting me.”

Natasha frowned. “It’s not about that.”

“Bullshit.” Clint downed another shot and set his glass upside down on the bar beside the others, all lined up in a neat little row like toy soldiers. “Coulson—”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Natasha said sharply.

“—Dally, Delerue, Fuller, Hobbes, Markovich, McManus, Pang, Ritchie, Turner, and Velazco.”

“Stop it.”

“Eleven SHIELD agents died in the attack I led on the helicarrier. _Eleven._ And let’s not even get started on the civilian casualties. Is it any wonder they don’t want me? Fuck, _I_ wouldn’t even want me.”

“That was Loki’s doing, not yours.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll never be clean of it.”

Natasha gave him a look that meant she thought he was being a dumbfuck. “Did you actually think you were clean before?” 

Instead of answering, Clint signaled the bartender for another shot of tequila.

“Anyway,” she continued, “if that’s why they fired you, why the hell did they fire me?”

“Collateral damage?” he suggested.

Natasha reached for a tortilla chip and thumbed through the packet of papers she’d been given by SHIELD Human Resources. “ _Managing the Stress of a Job Loss,_ ” she read aloud. “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”

Clint shook his head. “Fuck this shit. I’m going to Disneyland.”

As it happened, Disneyland was Clint’s codeword for the safe house he kept in Oregon. Natasha had never been there, but she knew it was a cabin somewhere in the woods, someplace very isolated. He only went there when he wanted to be completely alone.

She could respect his need for privacy, but only up to a point. After a week of radio silence she tried calling his cell, but it unsurprisingly went straight to voicemail. 

Okay, so he didn’t want to talk. She left a message anyway and waited twenty-four hours with no response before texting:

_If you want me to leave you alone, let me know you’re OK._

His response came five minutes later:

_5x5_

She left him alone.

“This doesn’t mean I’m joining your superhero club,” Bruce said. “Just so we’re clear.”

“Christ, we’re not eight-year-olds,” Tony said. “Does this look like a treehouse to you?”

“It most certainly does not,” Bruce conceded, looking around the lab Tony had built for him.

Tony shoved his hands into his pockets and narrowed his eyes, fixing Bruce with an intense gaze that most people probably found intimidating. “It’s a team, not a club,” he said. “And it could be fun.”

Bruce didn’t feel even the slightest bit intimidated. He shrugged. “Team sports aren’t really my thing.” 

“But you like the lab?” Pepper prompted, gently steering them back to the matter at hand.

“Of course he likes the lab,” Tony said, waving his hand impatiently. “The lab is perfect. The lab has everything he’s ever wanted.”

“It doesn’t have a synchrotron,” Bruce pointed out. 

Tony’s brow furrowed. “We’re a little pressed for space here in Manhattan, but I’m willing to build you a separate facility upstate if you really need it.”

“I was joking,” Bruce clarified, because he was fairly certain Tony wasn’t. “And yes, I like the lab. Very much, actually.” 

It was perfect, in fact. An entire floor of Stark Tower, complete with living quarters, hidden deep in a sub-basement so isolated he’d never have to see another living soul if he didn’t want to. Except for Tony, of course. But Bruce didn’t mind Tony. 

Objectively, he could appreciate why most people found Tony Stark so aggravating, but Bruce actually found him oddly soothing. Tony was the first person in a very long time who wasn’t afraid of him, not even a little bit. Tony didn’t walk on eggshells around him, he treated him just as blithely as he treated everyone else. To Bruce Banner that was a precious gift.

“Told ya,” Tony said, smirking at Pepper. 

She rolled her eyes in a way that conveyed far more affection than annoyance. “In that case, I’ll have the employment paperwork emailed to you right away, Dr. Banner, so security can set up your access. And then it will be all yours.”

Tony grinned. “Welcome to Stark Industries.”

“Still not joining your superhero team,” Bruce told him.

There were a lot of things Steve Rogers liked about the twenty-first century. He liked having 500 channels of cable television because there was always something to watch. He liked the internet because it was like having the entire public library at your fingertips, twenty-four hours a day. And he liked mocha lattes, because they were just plain delicious. Also because the girl who made them at the cafe around the corner from his apartment was pretty and she always drew a picture in the foam for him. He didn’t know how she did it, exactly, but today it was a bird and it made him smile.

He stopped smiling when the phone in the breast pocket of his shirt started ringing. Cellular telephones were one of the things he didn’t like about the twenty-first century. He didn’t like the way people always seemed to stare at their phones instead of at each other and he didn’t like the constant interruptions they caused or the fact that you were never really alone because someone could always get in touch with you. 

Which was why there was only one person in the whole world who had Steve’s cell phone number, and it was the person who’d insisted on giving him the phone in the first place. 

It took him a little longer than it should have to find the right button to answer the phone, but not as long as it’d taken him the last time it rang. “Hello, Tony,” he said, feeling rather proud of himself.

“Good news,” Tony said, by way of greeting. “Phase one of the plan has been initiated.”

“Glad to hear it,” Steve said. “How’s phase two coming along?”

“Still no movement on that front.”

“All right. Let me know if anything changes.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Goodbye,” Steve said, but Tony had already hung up. 

That was another thing he didn’t like about this modern world: how most people didn’t bother with basic courtesies anymore. And Tony Stark was one of the worst offenders on that count. Steve sighed and slipped the phone back into his pocket. 

“You want another mocha latte?” the waitress asked, stopping by his table.

Steve beamed a sunny smile up at her. “I’d love one. Thank you very much, ma’am.”


	2. Chapter 2

_“The higher the lift (and therefore the circulation) the stronger the trailing vortices. Furthermore, the presence of these trailing vortices results in a drag on the wing, even in ideal flow theory, for as they lengthen they contain more and more kinetic energy, and creating all this kinetic energy takes work.”_

 

In the Ngorongoro area of the southern Serengeti of Tanzania, a storm was raging. Thunder rumbled across the blackened skies and rain lashed the grasslands. The air crackled with electricity as lightning stabbed at the earth, frightening a herd of migrating wildebeests.

Storms were not uncommon in this part of the savannah, but this storm was different. Supernatural, in fact. 

You might even say it was mythic. 

Halfway around the world, in a Stark Industries laboratory in midtown Manhattan, a girl with a political science degree squinted at a monitor that had suddenly begun displaying a long, complicated string of characters.

“Holy shitballs,” the girl said. She threw an empty Mountain Dew can at the astrophysicist who’d fallen asleep at a nearby desk. “ _Jane!_ Wake the fuck up!”

Natasha was at a farmer’s market. This was what she did now, apparently. She went to farmer’s markets and fondled heirloom tomatoes. Or sat in coffee shops reading books about women who were unlucky in love. Sometimes, on the weekends, she’d go to pet adoption fairs and pretend she was thinking about getting a dog. She didn’t actually want a dog, she just pretended that she did.

She also pretended it didn’t bother her that her life had become intensely mundane. Not that she hadn’t had job offers. She’d had plenty. Just not any she could imagine herself taking anymore. 

When her phone rang she reached for it eagerly, hoping it was Clint. She was really trying to give him the space he wanted, but it would be a lot easier if he’d just fucking talk to her so she’d know he was doing okay.

It wasn’t Clint. 

“What do you want?” she said tersely into the phone.

“Captain America tells me phone conversations should start with basic pleasantries,” Tony Stark said. “Hello, how are you, nice to hear your voice again.” 

“I’m hanging up now,” Natasha told him. 

“I hear you’re out of a job,” he said quickly.

“Who told you that?”

“Bald guy. Eyepatch, playful sense of humor. Maybe you know him?”

Natasha frowned. “I wasn’t aware you were still speaking to Fury.”

“We meet for coffee klatch and book club every other Tuesday,” he quipped. “Listen, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“At least hear me out before you throw a drink in my face and storm off.”

“You’re really not selling this.”

“I’ve got a feeling you’re gonna like this one. How soon can you get back to New York?”

Natasha gazed at the tomato in her hand. It was at the peak of ripeness. Even color, unblemished skin. It was perfect, the great white whale of heirloom tomatoes. She’d been thinking of making it into a salad later with torn fresh basil and some slices of buffalo mozzarella.

“I’ll be there tonight,” she said.

Tony hung up the phone and tossed it onto the couch. “She’s on her way.”

Steve nodded. “Good.”

Tony went to the sideboard and poured himself two fingers of a very fine eighteen-year-old scotch that he couldn’t even begin to pronounce. “You sure about this?” 

“You don’t like her?” Steve asked, shaking his head when Tony offered to pour him a drink.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s magnificent.” Tony dropped onto the couch and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Smart, efficient, deadly… awe-inspiring, frankly. And Pepper keeps saying we need some women in the mix to keep this thing from becoming too much of a sausage-fest. Which is maybe a good point, actually… but I also think there’s a reason Fury made sure to tell me he’d fired her.”

Steve arched his brow. “You think she’s still working for SHIELD?”

Tony swirled the amber liquid around in his glass, watching the laws of fluid mechanics interplay. “Once a spy, always a spy, right?”

Stark Tower looked a lot better than the last time Natasha had been in New York. While most of the other buildings damaged in the Chitauri attack were still in varying states of disrepair, Tony’s precious baby seemed to be almost entirely back to its original, ostentatious glory.

Pepper Potts greeted her in the lobby with a wide, generous smile and offered to escort her up to the penthouse. 

“You look wonderful,” Pepper said in the elevator. “Civilian life must agree with you.”

“Not really,” Natasha admitted. She hadn’t intended to be so truthful, but Pepper was one of those people who seemed to invite confidences without being nosy. “I’ve been thinking of getting a dog,” she added.

Pepper gave her an oddly knowing sideways look. “You’ve never particularly struck me as a dog person.”

The elevator doors opened and Natasha stepped off. Pepper didn’t. “Aren’t you coming?” Natasha asked.

Pepper gave her tight smile. “You’re on your own with this one. Give the others my best.”

Natasha barely had time to wonder who the others were before Tony appeared. “Agent Romanoff!” he exclaimed, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“I’m not an agent anymore,” she reminded him.

“Of course, I must have forgotten,” he said, whisking her into the living room. “Look what Pepper brought us!” he announced.

Steve Rogers stood up and offered a firm but enthusiastic handshake while Bruce Banner nodded at her stiffly from where he stood on the far side of the room. She’d guessed that Rogers might be here, but Banner was a surprise. A rather pleasant one.

“Love the hair,” Tony told her. “I always suspected you’d make a knockout blonde.” 

“The red became too recognizable,” she said, scowling.

“I’ve started wearing a hat,” Steve said. “So I don’t get recognized on the street. I’ve got a whole collection of them now.”

“Funny, I never seem to get recognized,” Bruce said dryly. No one laughed except Tony.

“So,” Natasha said, cutting to the chase. “What’s the occasion?”

“Thor’s back,” Tony said cheerfully, moving to the bar and reaching for a pair of ice tongs.

Natasha cast her eyes around the room and arched her brows. “Can you see him right now? Is he invisible?”

“I always forget how funny you can be,” Tony said, pouring two ounces of very expensive Russian vodka and a hint of vermouth into a crystal martini pitcher. “Here on this earthly plane, not here in New York. He’s still in transit.”

“From?”

“Africa.”

“Okay.” Natasha shrugged and wandered over to the window overlooking the terrace. The view from Tony’s penthouse was truly magnificent at night. She hadn’t properly appreciated it the last time she’d been up here, what with Loki and the alien horde and the Hulk smashing everything in sight. Her eyes flicked over to Bruce and caught him watching her. He glanced away nervously.

Tony crossed to her and held out a martini glass. “We’re getting the band back together,” he said. “Vodka martini?”

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the drink. “That’s why you called me?”

“That’s pretty much the long and short of it, yeah.”

She sipped her martini. It was very dry and very excellent. “I wasn’t exactly in your band,” she pointed out. 

“Do you want to be?” Steve asked.

Natasha regarded them all circumspectly. Tony: always the center of attention, eager and slightly manic. Steve: quiet, calm, and thoughtful. And Bruce: awkward, shy, keeping himself a little apart from everyone else. 

“And you’re all in already?” she asked.

“I’m not, actually,” Bruce said. “I’m not part of this.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “Curiosity, I suppose. It’s kind of my downfall.”

“Ignore him,” Tony said. “He’ll see the error of his ways eventually. So what do you say, Romanoff? Wanna be an Avenger?”

She winced. “The name’s terrible. You know that, right?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, but we’re sort of stuck with it now. Got a logo and everything.”

“What about Barton?” she asked.

“What about him?”

“I want you to extend an invitation to him, too.”

Tony’s face contorted as if she’d said something funny. “You mean Loki’s minion? The guy with the bow and arrows? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“He was brainwashed. It wasn’t his fault.”

“We all know that,” Steve said, shooting Tony a warning look.

“Still doesn’t give me a reason to trust him,” Tony pointed out.

“Either he’s in or I’m out,” Natasha told them.

Tony cocked his head to the side, studying her. “Interesting. What is he, like your boyfriend or something?”

Natasha’s eyes flashed dangerously. Tony managed to make a decent show of standing his ground without flinching. Much.

“Barton’s a good man,” she said, her voice steely. “He wants to make up for the things Loki made him do. He deserves that chance.”

“That’s a nice story,” Tony said. “Touching, really. I’m moved. Here’s the thing, though: I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because we go back a ways, you and I, and because Steve and Pepper seem to like you. Mostly it’s because Pepper likes you, though, let’s be honest. But if we take your boyfriend on, that makes two SHIELD agents—”

“Former SHIELD agents,” Natasha corrected.

“Potato, potahto,” Tony said. “I’m not a fan of spies, as a rule. A fact I believe I’ve mentioned before.”

“He was pretty useful when we were fighting off the Chitauri,” Steve pointed out. “He’s got a good eye and he’s an excellent tactician. He could be a valuable asset. I think he deserves a chance.”

“So do I,” said Bruce.

Tony shot him a look. “I thought you weren’t part of this team. Or did you change your mind about that?”

Bruce set his jaw stubbornly. “No. I didn’t.”

“Then you don’t get a vote,” Tony snapped.

“But I do,” Steve said in his full-on Captain America voice, no more mild-mannered Mr. Nice Steve. “And I say Barton’s in.”

He and Tony locked eyes and stayed that way for several long moments, engaged in some kind of silent battle of wills. The tension in room was thick enough that Natasha cast a uneasy glance at Bruce, but he seemed more amused than anything. 

Tony was the first to flinch. “Fine,” he conceded finally. “Whatever. Can I break out the Moët now or is there going to be another last-minute nomination? Dr. Doom maybe, or that girl who works in Dr. Foster’s lab?” 

“I can already tell this is going to be loads of fun,” Natasha said dryly.

**Text Message**

To: CB  
Ju1 7, 2012 11:28 PM

_I need to talk to you._

 

Jul 8, 2012 10:49 AM

_It’s important._

 

Jul 8, 2012 6:02 PM

_I mean it._

 

Jul 8, 2012 11:57 PM

_Dammit Clint, answer me._

It took Natasha twelve hours to locate Clint’s secret cabin, including travel time from New York.

It was rustic and secluded, like something from the beginning of a Stephen King novel, just before the ghosts and/or monsters showed up. She arrived at twilight and surveilled the place from cover. There was a battered green International Harvester Scout parked on the gravel drive out front. Lamplight shone through the slats of the closed wooden blinds, but there were no sounds or signs of movement inside. If Clint was in there he was keeping a low profile. 

She didn’t bother knocking. The front door was locked but it was just a cheap cylinder lock that took her all of six seconds to pick. She opened the door and stepped inside.

“You really shouldn’t sneak up on me,” Clint said, lowering his bow with a shaky hand.

“If I’d been trying to sneak up on you, you wouldn’t have heard me coming,” Natasha replied, frowning.

The cabin smelled like beef jerky and dirty socks. The kitchen table was covered with days-old dirty dishes and the trashcan was filled to the brim with empty beer cans and bottles of cheap whiskey. Clint’s skin was ashen and his eyes were bloodshot and hollowed by dark circles above several weeks’ worth of beard. He didn’t appear to have changed clothes in days. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone,” she said.

He at least had the sense to look vaguely embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting company,” he mumbled. 

“Clearly.”

His eyes flashed angrily. “You know, I don’t barge into your home and start passing judgement on the way you choose to spend your free time.”

“If you hadn’t wanted me to come you would’ve answered my texts,” she retorted. “When’s the last time you slept without drinking yourself into oblivion?”

He snorted. “Is it still June?”

“July.”

“Let’s just say it’s been a while.”

She sighed. “Go take a shower and get cleaned up. I need to talk to you about something and I need you to be less revolting when we do it.”

While Clint showered, Natasha worked on cleaning up the kitchen and tidying the cabin. A half hour later he emerged from the bedroom freshly shaven and wearing relatively clean clothes, his hair still slightly damp and smelling of shampoo. He collapsed onto the couch wordlessly. Natasha dried her hands on a dishtowel and went to sit next to him.

They sat side by side for a while, neither of them speaking or looking at the other. 

Eventually Clint said, “It’s good to see you, Nat.”

“Sorry it took me so long,” she said.

“I miss anything important in the world?” 

She shrugged. “Andy Griffith died.”

“Wasn’t he dead already?”

“Apparently not,” she said. “Also, Thor’s back. Presumably. I haven’t seen him yet.”

Clint looked over at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “Stark wants to make the Avengers a real thing.”

Clint looked away. “So that’s why you’re here.”

“They want us on the team.”

“You mean they want _you_ on the team. ’Cause I’m pretty damn sure they don’t want me.”

“Rogers wants you. So does Banner. Although Banner keeps insisting he’s not in, so, you know. Whatever.”

“What about Stark?”

“Do you care what Tony Stark thinks?”

“Not really.”

“Stark thinks we’re _both_ still spying for Fury.”

Clint laughed bitterly. “That’s rich.”

“I think it would be good for you.”

“I’m not a superhero, Nat, I’m just a guy.”

“I’m not a superhero either.”

“Are you kidding? You’re practically a force of nature.” He shook his head, shoulders slumped. “I’m not even a hero.”

“You could be,” she told him. 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you doing it?”

She sighed and stared down at her hands. “You know what I’ve figured out in the last month? I’m terrible at being normal. And I really, really don’t want to get a dog.”

Clint smiled faintly. “At least you managed to bathe yourself without supervision.”

“That is true,” she agreed.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Then Natasha said: “I’ll do it if you do it.”

Clint sighed. “I don’t have to wear spandex, do I? I fucking hate spandex.”


	3. Chapter 3

_“Real vortices are typically characterized by fairly small vortex ‘cores’ in which, by definition, the vorticity is concentrated, while outside the core the flow is essentially irrotational. The core is not usually exactly circular, of course; nor is the vorticity usually uniform within it.”_

 

A slot on the Avengers came with living quarters, apparently.

Over the course of his life, Clint had lived in an orphanage, a circus caravan, a barracks, and a series of shitty apartments. You could take every single space he’d ever had to call his own (including the two-room cabin in Oregon), put them all together, and they still wouldn’t equal the square-footage of his new penthouse in Stark Tower.

For reasons that eluded him, there were two of almost everything: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms, a dining room _and_ a breakfast area. The kitchen looked like a set on the Food Network, the bathrooms were straight out of _Architectural Digest,_ and there was a separate room off the master suite just for getting dressed. There was an enormous plasma TV in the less formal of the two living rooms, a kick-ass built-in sound system, and an office with an array of six monitors and a computer that almost certainly cost more than Clint’s last car. The whole thing was fucking ridiculous (even if he was seriously looking forward to firing up his XBox as soon as he got the chance).

Getting a taste of the kind of luxury Tony Stark had been taking for granted his whole life went a long way to explaining why the guy was such a raging asshole, though. 

“The firing range is through those doors,” Stark said as he conducted the tour of the common areas. “It was built for firearms, obviously, but I’m having it retrofitted to accommodate medieval weaponry, in deference to our newest recruit.” He threw a smirk in Clint’s direction that made him want to seriously punch Stark in the neck. 

Natasha brushed her hand lightly and unobtrusively against Clint’s, a message that meant _ignore him, he’s an idiot._ Clint managed to keep his mouth shut. Barely.

There were nine floors of penthouses allotted to the Avengers. Stark’s was the largest, taking up two whole levels, and the one with the big terrace (now restored to its former glory) where Loki had tried to destroy the world. Steve Rogers had the floor above him, then Tasha, and then Clint. Thor had the top floor, the one with roof access, since he was the only other Avenger who could fly. Banner apparently didn’t have a penthouse and was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact he was rumored to be hiding out in the tower somewhere.

The level below Stark’s penthouse was all common areas designated for the exclusive use of the Avengers. In addition to the aforementioned firing range there was a commissary, a health spa, a weight room, a sparring ring, and an enormous rec room. It was like some kind of super-rich adolescent fantasy frat house. Like walking into an episode of MTV’s “Cribs” on high-tech steroids.

“Vintage pinball and arcade games,” Stark said, gesturing offhandedly. “Darts, pool table, digital jukebox, five different gaming systems, 900 channels of satellite TV, and, most importantly… the bar. Fully stocked, of course.”

“When’s the first toga party?” Clint muttered and heard Tasha snort beside him.

Thor was distracted by the foosball table. “What is the purpose of these small wooden men?” he asked, spinning one of the rods experimentally. “Are they soldiers? Is this a game of war?”

“It’s table football,” Steve Rogers explained. “I played in London a few times.” He reached for the ball and dropped it onto the board. “You move the rods and the players kick the ball, see? And you try to score on your opponent by getting the ball into his goal.”

He executed an impressive-looking brush pass and push shot that sent the ball sailing into Thor’s goal despite his flailing attempts to block. 

Thor’s eyes got very wide and there was a tense moment while everyone wondered how the God of Thunder was going to react to having his ass handed to him at foosball. When he finally threw his head back and laughed, there was a collective, murmured sigh of relief. 

“I enjoy this game!” Thor announced. “I relish the opportunity to master its strategy!”

“Wait’ll he gets a load of _Call of Duty,_ ” Clint said.

As it turned out, the common areas didn’t get a whole lot of use. Despite his professed love of foosball, the majority of Thor’s time was spent hanging around his scientist girlfriend. Tony was largely consumed by the various secret projects he had brewing in his lab. Natasha had absolutely no use for games, or recreation, or socializing, and therefore kept mostly to her own quarters when she wasn’t at the firing range. Steve used the hell out of the gym, but that was about it.

As for Clint, he quickly realized that the problem with working out alongside super humans was that they were … well … super human. There was really nothing like watching Captain America bench press 1100 pounds like it was a bag of feathers to make you question your own self worth. After the first time, Clint switched his daily workouts to midnight, when there was no one around to judge him for his 250-pound bench. Which actually worked out fine. He’d cut way back on his drinking since he’d left the cabin, which hadn’t done a damn thing to help his insomnia. If he was going to be up anyway, he might as well be tiring himself out.

“They’ve got nothing to do,” Steve said, frowning.

“Did you think there was going to be an alien invasion every week?” Tony asked. “It’s not exactly a high-demand business we’re in here. Which is, I might add, a good thing.”

“Boredom is bad for morale. And they’re not bonding. They’re barely even speaking to each other. How are we going to function effectively as a team when we’re all essentially strangers?”

“So what you’re saying is we need some sort of team-building activity.”

“Exactly.”

“Movie night,” Tony said, at the exact same time that Steve said: “Training sessions.”

They stared at each other.

“Mine’s more fun,” Tony pointed out. 

“Mine’s more useful,” Steve said.

The first official Avengers training session was an unmitigated disaster.

Steve was used to the army, where everyone simply followed orders without question. Thor was more accustomed to giving orders than following them, that is when he wasn’t simply haring off on his own without considering the consequences. Tony had the attention span of a toddler and an aversion to authority that meant he invariably reacted to most orders by doing the exact opposite. Clint and Natasha were at least used to functioning within a command structure, but they quickly lost patience with everyone else’s lack of discipline. 

The whole thing came to an inglorious end after Thor got into a shouting match with Steve, threw Mjölnir through a wall, and stormed off in a huff.

The second official Avengers session didn’t go much better.

It ended with Clint pinning Tony to the mat in a chokehold and refusing to let him up—even when Stark’s lips started turning blue—until finally Steve was forced to intervene. While Steve and Clint were grappling and shouting at one another everyone else got bored and wandered off.

“This is a catastrophe,” Steve groaned, burying his head in his hands.

“No argument here,” Tony said.

“What are we going to do? At this rate, we’ll kill each other before we get the chance to defend the world again.”

“We tried your thing,” Tony said. “Now we’re trying mine.”

**Group MMS**

To: Steve Rogers & 5 more ...  
Ju1 26, 2012 1:04 PM

Tony Stark:  
 _Captain America has never seen The Shawshank Redemption._

Tony Stark:  
 _It’s our patriotic duty to remedy this appalling oversight._

Tony Stark:  
 _Movie night tomorrow in the rec room. 7:00. Mandatory._

Natasha scowled when she found Tony Stark standing outside her door later that afternoon.

“Have you ever seen _Shawshank?_ ” he asked, walking in as if he’d been invited. Which he hadn’t.

“No,” she said, shutting the door behind him.

“Amazing film. Life-changing.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’re coming to movie night, though, right?” he asked, fiddling with an antique Tibetan ritual dagger that Natasha had picked up on a mission in Thimphu.

“I don’t like movies,” she said, frowning.

“Everyone likes this movie.” He put the dagger back in its stand. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Natasha laughed out loud. “Sure. Let me get right on that.”

“The thing is it’s not really for me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed at her. “I want you to come to movie night and I want you to convince everyone else to come, too.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You’ll agree this whole team concept isn’t going as smoothly as it could, yes?”

She snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

He nodded. “There’s a chance it may not work out. And if it doesn’t… oh well. I mean, I’ve still got Pepper and my company and my stacks of money to keep me warm at night. Thor’s got Dr. Foster, not to mention a home he can still go back to if he wants. You’ve got… lots of knives, I assume, or guns maybe. Whatever.” He shrugged. “I don’t know your boyfriend very well, but I guess he was doing fine before we came along and he’ll keep on being fine even if this whole experiment blows up like one of Hammer’s prototypes.”

Natasha kept her mouth shut and her expression carefully blank.

“What’s Rogers got, though?” Tony continued. “No friends, no family, no home. No work except this. If the Avengers fails what’s Steve going to be left with?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Maybe you don’t care.”

“Why did you come to me?” she asked.

“Because underneath that cold, unfeeling persona you cultivate so carefully, I’m pretty sure you actually like Rogers. And because you’re very good at manipulating people into doing what you want.”

Natasha pursed her lips. “You honestly think a movie’s going to fix anything?”

“You haven’t seen this movie,” Tony said. “Trust me.”

She started with Thor. Or rather, with Thor’s girlfriend.

Natasha didn’t know Jane Foster well, but they’d bumped into each other a couple of times in the tower. She seemed friendly, unusually attractive for an astrophysicist, and perpetually distracted in the way that brilliant people often were. 

Natasha found her down in her lab on the twenty-third floor. Jane stared at her blankly for a moment and then smiled brightly when it finally came to her. “Natasha, right? You’re one of the Avengers.”

The other woman working in the lab looked up, narrowing her eyes at Natasha. “Didn’t you used to have red hair?”

“I dyed it,” Natasha said. “Got tired of being recognized.”

“I liked it better red,” the woman said.

“Darcy, you’re being rude,” Jane told her.

“What? She’s still super-hot as a blonde, I just thought it was a really cool red.” She shrugged.

“Thor said you put him in a chokehold the other day,” Jane said. “He seemed really happy about.”

Natasha suppressed a smile at the memory. “He wasn’t very happy at the time.”

“No, he loves it when people beat him. I mean, it makes him mad at first, but then he has, like, eternal respect for you. It’s some Asgardian warrior thing.” She rolled her eyes, as if her alien demi-god boyfriend was the silliest thing ever.

“I was hoping maybe you could do me a favor,” Natasha said.

“Sure,” Jane said, without even knowing what she was going to ask. 

Natasha tried to imagine what it would be like to be so open and trusting that you’d happily agree to do favors for near-strangers without even asking questions. It was mind-boggling.

“Captain Rogers is planning this movie night thing tomorrow,” she explained.

“ _Oh my god, it’s true!_ ” Darcy erupted. “Captain freaking America! He’s really here, isn’t he? In this building! That is so totally cool!”

“Keep your voice down,” Jane hissed. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“You knew!” Darcy said, pointing an accusing finger at Jane. “I asked you and you said you didn’t know but you _did._ You knew all along!”

Jane sighed. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this.”

“So, it’s supposed to be this sort of team-building thing,” Natasha cut in before Darcy could resume her Captain America spasm. “And I wasn’t sure if Thor was planning to come?”

“He hasn’t said anything about it to me.”

“I was hoping you could maybe… encourage him. I think it would mean a lot to Steve.”

“Oh, he’s fucking going,” Darcy said. “We’re not letting down Captain America, even if we have to taze Thor and carry him there ourselves.”

Jane smiled at Natasha. “I think you can safely assume Thor will be there.”

Tony had said he’d handle Steve himself, so Natasha turned her attention to Clint.

She didn’t like Stark’s security cameras tracking her movements, so she scaled the distance between her balcony and Clint’s, picked the lock, and let herself into his penthouse. It was far from the first time she’d dropped in like this, so he didn’t even bother looking up from his video game when she wandered in.

“I think I’m in the mood for Thai tonight,” he said, grimacing as he worked the game controller. “Unless you’ve really got your heart set on Italian.”

“Anything’s fine,” she said, sitting down next to him on the expensive leather couch. 

She watched him blow up armored aliens for a while. She’d never understood the appeal of video games, or how Clint could spend so much of his free time doing something that so closely resembled their real work. He’d told her once that it was good for the fast-twitch reflexes. There was more to it than that, though, or he wouldn’t sink so many hours into it when he was unhappy. She suspected it had something to do with losing himself in another world. Another life. One that existed without consequences. 

He’d been playing a lot of video games since she’d brought him back from Oregon.

“Did you see Stark’s text?” she asked eventually.

Clint snorted. “Fucking movie night. Can you believe that guy?”

“I’ve never seen _The Shawshank Redemption,_ have you?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it good?”

“Yeah, it’s good. We should watch it sometime.”

“We could go to Stark’s movie night,” she suggested.

Clint paused the game and stared at her. “What the fuck is going on, Tasha?”

She gazed at him levelly. “What do you think is going to happen if this team can’t figure out how to work together? If things keep going as badly as they have been? Stark’s not going to keep bankrolling all of this indefinitely if there’s zero potential for success.”

“And movie night is going to fix everything? Make us all one big happy family?”

She shrugged. “I hear it’s a good movie.”

Clint snorted. “Nothing’s that good.”

“This is all I’ve got going for me right now,” she said seriously. “I’m pretty sure it’s all you’ve got, too. I just… really, really don’t want to get a dog.”

“Have you considered a turtle?”

“Clint.”

He shook his head and turned back to his game. “Fine. We’ll go to fucking movie night. But we’re ordering Thai tonight instead of Italian. You owe me that.”

Stark hadn’t said anything about Banner. He wasn’t part of the Avengers, and he hadn’t been at any of the training sessions, so there was no reason to think he needed to be at movie night.

But he had been included in the group text Stark had sent out. Which meant Natasha (and everyone else) now had Bruce’s cell phone number. There was no way that had been an accident on Tony’s part.

She stared at her phone for a while, debating. Then she typed out a message.

_Are you coming to movie night tonight? It would be nice to see you._

She hit send.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains MAJOR SPOILERS for THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. If you have not seen the movie... well, a) _What is wrong with you???_ and b) Go out and watch that shit right now. I'm serious. Go. I'll wait. You're back? You say you've seen it now? Okay, good. Carry on.

_“Yet we have given no account of the dynamical processes by which that circulation is generated when the aerofoil starts from a state of rest. It arises, in fact, in response to the starting vortex … but why this should be so is far from obvious, and rests on one of the deepest theorems in the subject.”_

 

Bruce looked up when he heard the the ding of the elevator down the hall, expecting to see Tony. It wasn’t Tony who walked in the door. It was Captain America.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Steve Rogers said genially as he wandered into the lab. 

“Did Tony rat me out or did Pepper?” Bruce asked. This level was supposed to be completely secure; Tony and Pepper were the only ones with the access code for the elevator, besides Bruce himself, and they had assured him they’d keep it that way. Even the custodial staff weren’t allowed down here without Bruce’s invitation. He supposed he should have known it was too good to last.

“Tony,” Steve said sheepishly. “You don’t really think Miss Potts would—”

“No, it was a stupid question.” Bruce capped his pen and tossed it onto the desk. The calculations he’d been working on were a wash; he was going to have to start over from scratch after Steve left.

“Seems like a nice setup,” Steve observed. “A little lonely, maybe, but I guess that doesn’t bother you much.”

“So is this the next step in Tony’s plan?” Bruce asked irritably. “Lull me into a sense of complacency and then send you in to sucker punch me with the recruitment speech?” 

It was actually a pretty brilliant plan. This was Captain America, after all, the Star-Spangled Man himself: a bonafide national treasure. He was practically a walking recruitment poster. Just seeing him walking down the street with his steely jaw and his upright posture was probably enough to inspire people to spontaneously join up for the armed forces.

Steve’s smile was surprisingly bitter. “I don’t give recruitment speeches anymore. And I’m the one that asked Tony where I could find you. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your solitude.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, slightly mollified. “What’s the occasion, then?”

“I need some advice,” Steve said.

Bruce snorted. “From me? Surely there are better places you can turn.”

“You’re one of the smartest guys I know, Dr. Banner.”

“Tony’s smarter.”

“Tony’s part of the problem.”

“Well,” Bruce said. “I guess that shines a new light on things. You want some tea?”

“I’d love some, thanks.”

Bruce filled up the electric kettle and got two Stark Industries mugs out of the cabinet. There was nothing personal in the lab, nothing that really belonged to him. He’d brought no possessions with him; everything here, including the clothes on his back, had been acquired through Stark Industries channels. He opened the tin of honeybush tea he’d requisitioned and scooped some into each mug. Then he turned back to Steve, leaned against the counter, and waited.

Steve had perched himself on one of the lab stools. He looked a bit like a giant balancing on a piece of child’s furniture. He also looked troubled. “The team’s not cohering like they should,” he said. “I can’t get anyone to work together, they’re constantly at each other’s throats. Most of them can’t stand each other.”

Bruce suppressed the urge to smile. “That’s not exactly a surprise, is it?”

Steve sighed. “I guess not. I don’t know what to do about it, though.”

“You do realize getting along with other people isn’t exactly one of my strong suits, right?” 

“Sometimes articulating a problem can be enough to help you find your way to the solution,” Steve said. “And you’re really the only one I can talk to.” 

For the first time, it occurred to Bruce that Captain America, living legend, might be just as lonely as he was. He turned back to the kettle, which had reached a boil. “Have you tried talking to Tony? He is capable of being reasonable on rare occasions.”

“I’ve talked to him. He thinks this movie night is the solution.”

“I take it you don’t agree?” 

“Do you?”

“No, probably not.” Bruce handed Steve a mug of tea and retreated back to the chair at his own desk. “What about some sort of group training exercises? I assume that’s the sort of thing they’d do in the military.”

“I’ve tried it and it was an unmitigated disaster. No one would listen or follow orders, everyone just ended up fighting amongst themselves.” Steve sniffed the tea experimentally and then tried a small sip. He nodded in appreciation. 

Bruce blew gently on the surface of his own tea. “You led the sessions?”

Steve glanced up. “Yes. Shouldn’t I have?”

Bruce shrugged. “You’re a natural leader, obviously. But I’m not sure the others are natural followers. They’re used to working on their own, for the most part.”

“There’s got to be a command structure if we’re going to function effectively in the field,” Steve said, frowning. “Every man for himself gets people killed.”

“No question. But you’re dealing with some pretty strong personalities with uniquely specialized skills and experience. I’m just saying a blanket approach may not be the most effective.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully. “So I should try to harness each individual’s expertise? Maybe even let them each take a turn leading the training sessions.”

Bruce shrugged again. “It’s really not my area.”

“That could work.” Steve looked up and smiled, flashing a mouthful of teeth so straight and white they practically sparkled like in those old toothpaste commercials. “Thank you Dr. Banner, you’ve been very helpful. I think you’re much better with people than you give yourself credit for.”

“You can call me Bruce. And I don’t think I was much help.” He paused. “But you’re welcome.” He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and he fished it out, frowning at the screen.

“Everything okay?” Steve asked.

Bruce nodded. “It’s just a text from Natasha, asking if I’m coming to movie night.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket without typing a reply. 

“Are you?”

“Probably not.” 

Steve nodded silently, looking at him. “You should come,” he said after a moment. “You might surprise yourself and have a good time.”

“I hope you have prepared yourselves, because what you are about to witness is a bonafide cinematic masterpiece,” Tony announced, brandishing the Blu-ray case with a theatrical flourish. “I hold in my hand the greatest film of our time.”

“You might be overselling this a bit,” Clint said, draping his arm around Natasha. The screening area was one great big u-shaped leather sectional and they’d all arrayed themselves around it, burrowing deep into the plump cushions. The coffee table was laid out with a rich assortment of candy and two giant bowls of popcorn in honor of the occasion.

“Impossible,” Tony scoffed as he slipped the disc into the player.

“I have watched several of your Midgardian moving pictureshows with Jane,” Thor said. “I enjoyed the _Star Wars_ very much. The one about the foolish hungover men with the baby was not as much to my liking.”

“Don’t worry, big guy, this one’s gonna be right up your alley,” Tony assured him. 

“Dr. Banner!” Thor hailed as Bruce wandered in. “It has been too long, my friend!” 

“Hey, Thor,” Bruce said, smiling faintly. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Nonsense,” Tony said, navigating through the DVD menu. “You’re just in time. You remember Barton, I assume?”

Bruce nodded. “How’s it going?”

“Everyone budge over so our friend Dr. Banner can sit down,” Tony ordered, waving his hand imperiously. 

Natasha shoved Clint towards Steve and scooted over after him so there was room for Bruce to sit down. “I didn’t think you were coming,” she told him.

He shrugged. “It’s really good movie.”

“All right,” Tony said, dropping into the space they’d left him on the other side of Bruce. “Everyone’s settled, yes? Let’s watch this bitch.” He started the movie.

“This is a Stephen King story?” Natasha said when she saw his name in the opening credits. “Are there going be murderous cars? Murderous dogs? Murderous teenagers?” She was a fan horror movies; this might be more fun than she’d expected.

“It’s about geology,” Bruce said. “The study of pressure and time.”

“That sounds less fun,” she said, disappointed.

“Shush and watch the movie,” Tony said.

They watched the movie.

“This movie is extremely sad,” Steve said at the end of the first half hour.

“Just wait,” Clint told him.

When they got to the part where Brooks set his pet crow free, Natasha heard Tony sniffle.

After Brooks hanged himself she glanced over at Steve and saw tears rolling openly down his face. She decided that Stark was a sadistic bastard who was going to need some punishment. 

When the warden had Tommy killed Thor cried out in anguish.

As Andy was describing the Pacific Ocean to Red, she caught Clint swiping at his eyes. She leaned into him a little more and felt his arm tighten around her.

When Andy climbed out of the sewer and raised his arms to the lightning-streaked sky, Thor jumped up and cheered in triumph. 

“Down in front,” Steve muttered, and Thor sat back down.

By the time Andy and Red were reunited on the beach in Zihuatanejo there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, except for Bruce. His eyes were fixed on the screen, his lips pressed into a thin line and his expression impenetrable.

No one spoke until the credits had finished rolling and the DVD menu came up. 

“Well?” Tony asked, turning to survey them all. “Did I oversell it?”

“No,” Steve said, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief he’d pulled out of his pocket. “Definitely not.” 

“This movie,” Thor said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I love this movie with all my heart. I’ve never before been so moved by playacting.”

“You know, I remember it being good,” Clint said. “But I’d forgotten just how good.”

“It’s exactly as good as I remembered,” Bruce said quietly.

Tony eyed Natasha. “Well, Romanoff? What’d you think?”

Natasha had changed her mind about Stark. He was still a sadistic bastard, but it had been an ingenious choice of movie. Not just because it was good, or because it was about a disparate group of people bonding in the face of adversity, but because there was something in it that spoke to each and every one one of them in a different way. 

For Steve, it had reflected his own struggles as a man adrift, out of time and place. For Thor, it was a straightforward story of right triumphing over injustice. For Clint, it was about redemption and forgiveness. And for Bruce, it was just like he’d said: a study of the effects of pressure and time on a man. As for Natasha, she had found herself oddly moved by the small moments of joy amidst hopelessness, in a way that dredged up some not-entirely-unpleasant memories.

She shrugged. “It was all right.” Because recognizing that Tony Stark was right and admitting it out loud were two completely different things.

Clint snorted. “That means she loved it.”

“So,” Tony said, clapping his hands. “We’re on again for next Friday night, yes? Feel free to text me your nominations for the furtherance of Steve and Thor’s cinematic education. I’m open to any genre.”

“Except pornography,” Steve interjected.

“ _Including_ pornography,” Tony corrected. “Also, we’re going to have another training session tomorrow, and this one is going to go better than the last two.”

“How do you figure that?” Natasha asked.

“Because this time we are all going to pull together and act like grown-ups for a change.” He held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Yes, yes, including me. Shocking, I know, but if I can make the sacrifice we all can. Let’s do this for Red, people.”

“You understand he’s a fictional character, right?” Natasha said.

Tony tapped the arc reactor in his chest and said, with absolute seriousness, “He lives in our hearts and that makes him real.”

The training session the next morning, while not exactly an unqualified success, was at least a significant improvement over their prior outings.

Steve explained that instead of trying to force everyone to ignore all their previous experience and conform to his idea of how combat should be conducted, they were going to try pooling their collective knowledge, thereby expanding everyone’s expertise and increasing their familiarity with one another’s particular skills and weaknesses.

And then he invited Thor to step up and share some of his strategies for dealing with the magical and non-human opponents he’d faced in Asgard. 

It wasn’t terrible. Only one argument broke out, and it ended quickly when Thor picked up the offending parties (in this case, Clint and Tony) by the scruff of their necks and banged them together like a pair of muddy shoes. After that everyone seemed to get along pretty well. And if the Avengers ever happened to find themselves in a fight with a giant Asgardian sea serpent, they would know exactly what to do.


	5. Chapter 5

_“Even a very small shearing force will deform a fluid body, but the velocity of the deformation will be correspondingly small. This property serves as the definition of a fluid; the shearing forces necessary to deform a fluid body go to zero as the velocity of deformation tends to zero.”_

 

Natasha was a little surprised when Maria Hill called to invite her to lunch. Their working relationship had always been amicable, but wasn’t as if they were girlfriends who did things like go out to lunch. Natasha didn’t have girlfriends. She had associates. And whatever Clint was.

She accepted the invitation with only a reasonable degree of suspicion. It was possible Maria was only trying to keep in touch with a former coworker, after all. It seemed unlikely, but Natasha was willing to at least entertain the possibility that not everyone was entirely duplicitous all the time.

They met at a cozy sandwich shop in Tribeca. Maria was dressed in sandals and a summery skirt that blended right in with all the young, wealthy housewives dining around them. After they’d ordered a pair of salads and the fruit-flavored ice tea of the day they retired to a table in the far back corner of the restaurant. 

They chatted idly about a variety of neutral topics: the weather (both agreed it was unseasonably hot), the cleanup of New York (going much more slowly than they’d hoped), and the upcoming presidential election (pretty much a foregone conclusion). Maria even volunteered some benign gossip about some of Natasha’s former SHIELD coworkers: who was sleeping with who, who was rumored to be an alcoholic, that sort of thing. None of it was exactly breaking news to Natasha, but it was pleasant to talk about her old life for a while.

“So, how’s the new job?” Maria finally asked, smirking. “Is it fun being an Avenger?”

Natasha scowled. “God, I hate the name so much.” 

“Heard you guys got off to kind of a rocky start.”

“Did you?” Natasha said neutrally.

“All those narcissistic personalities on one team? They must be fighting constantly. I told the director it was a bad idea.”

“I remember.”

“Have you seen much of Banner? He’s living in the Tower too, right? Has he officially joined the team yet?” 

Natasha set down her fork and stared at Maria. “You’re here on Fury’s orders, aren’t you?”

Maria sighed and shook her head slightly. “If it means anything, I objected to this assignment. Strenuously.”

“It does, thank you.” Natasha stood up and retrieved her purse. “When you make your report, please communicate to Director Fury my desire that he go fuck himself with a razor blade.”

She didn’t tell anyone about her lunch with Maria, not even Clint. Especially not Clint.

“How’s your upper body mobility?” Tony asked, frowning.

Clint swung his arms up and down and side to side. “Little limited, honestly.”

“Give him some more room across the shoulders,” Tony told the Stark lab minion who was madly typing notes into his tablet. “But the legs need to be tighter. And what is going on with the belt? Is he trying out for Earth, Wind & Fire? No. That’s way too high, bring that down.”

“What’s this thing made out of?” Clint asked, squirming uncomfortably. “It makes my balls itch.”

“Proprietary Stark tech. Strong as kevlar yet pliable as cloth. But hey, I’m happy to get rid of it if you don’t want your jewels protected from bullets, blades, shrapnel, and fire damage.”

“No, it’s cool,” Clint said quickly. “I’ll just wear an extra pair of underwear or something.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Stark?” A young woman in a lab coat appeared in the doorway. Clint stared at her, trying to figure out why she looked familiar. And then it hit him: New Mexico. Her face had been all over SHIELD’s file on Thor and the Destroyer incident.

“What?” Tony said irritably. He turned around and stared at her blankly for a fraction of a second before he snapped his fingers. “Darcy, right?”

“Yep,” she said. “Just thought you might wanna know that Thor’s threatening to toss one of your lab nerds off the top of the tower for hitting on Dr. Foster.”

“Well, that’s fantastic,” Tony said. He pointed at the minion taking notes. “I’m not liking the way that zipper’s working. Take a closer look at it while I go pacify the Norse god.” He headed for the door, waving his hand behind him. “Back in a jiff.”

Darcy watched him go and then turned back to stare at Clint, who was standing there like an idiot scarecrow while Stark’s minion poked him and prodded him and measured various parts of his anatomy with a cloth tape measure.

“Uh, hey,” Clint said awkwardly.

She gave him a thumbs up. “Bitchin’ unitard.”

“It’s a tac suit,” he said pathetically.

“You just keep telling yourself that. Hey, you’re one of the Avengers, right? The Legolas dude.”

“Hawkeye.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “So, like… do you know Captain America?” 

Clint sighed.

Bruce probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Natasha walked into his lab, but he was. The smile she flashed was carefully calculated to be disarming and non-threatening, but coming from her, it had more or less the opposite effect.

“I take it Tony’s just offering up the access code for my lab to everyone he meets in the hallway now?” he asked, scowling.

The corner of her mouth dimpled in a faint smirk. “You really think I needed Stark to give me the access code?” Her hair was red again; apparently she’d given up on trying to be incognito. 

Bruce sighed. “I guess not. It might have been nice if you’d asked instead of just barging in, though.”

“I didn’t realize I needed to make an appointment for a friendly visit.”

“Is that what this is? A friendly visit?”

“That was the intention, yes.”

He searched her face, looking for evidence of the lie, but there wasn’t any. 

“Okay,” he said, shrugging. Maybe she was telling the truth. He still wasn’t going to invite her to sit down or offer to make her any tea. It was too much like giving in, like agreeing that she was welcome to drop in on him.

If she was bothered by his inhospitality she didn’t show it. “It’s raining today,” she said. “Did you even know?”

He did know, in fact. There was a little-used conference room on the fortieth floor where he liked to watch the sun rise while enjoying his first and only coffee of the day. He didn’t say anything, though. It pleased him to think he’d managed to keep his routine a secret.

She wandered around the lab, feigning interest in various items sitting out. “So is this what you wanted?” she asked, stooping to peer into a Petri dish. “To be hermetically sealed underground in complete isolation?” She straightened, gazing around at the windowless, double-reinforced walls. “Feels a little like a prison to me. Roomier than SHIELD’s cell, and with more amenities, but a prison all the same.”

His mouth twisted. “Maybe a prison’s the best place for me.”

She looked at him appraisingly. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Freedom has consequences,” he said.

She hopped gracefully onto one of the lab stools—the same one Steve Rogers had awkwardly perched on—making herself comfortable. “That’s true for everyone, though, isn’t it? It’s in the very nature of civilization.”

He shook his head. He really wasn’t in the mood for a philosophical debate. “In my case the consequences are little more… catastrophic.”

“It’s funny,” she said. “Most of my life I’ve been used and controlled by other people. I was molded into a weapon, to be pointed wherever someone else chose. I never really knew what freedom felt like, until recently.”

“And how does it feel?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Honestly?” She smiled ruefully. “A little dull.”

Bruce laughed softly. “Is that why you agreed to join Tony’s little project? So you could go back to being a weapon?”

Her face hardened. “I’ll always be a weapon, there’s no getting away from that. At least now I’ve got a say in where I’m pointed.”

He kept his voice carefully neutral. “Do you?”

For an instant something dark flashed across her face. “Yes,” she said, her eyes steady and defiant. “I do.”

He gave a little shrug and stared down at his notes without really seeing them. He wished now he’d offered her tea just so he’d something to do with his hands, an excuse to do anything but look at her.

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said. “About you.”

Under the desk he clenched his hands into fists and then released, stretching the fingers out straight. Clench. Release. Clench. Release. “This should be good,” he said, without looking up. Clench. Release. 

“I was wondering... can the other guy swim?”

He looked up, taken off guard. “What?”

“How do you feel after a change?” she asked. “Is it easier to maintain your equilibrium the longer you hold it back, or is there some sort of pressure relief in letting yourself go?”

“Where is this leading?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice even.

“You know how Rogers has organized these training sessions? They’re not so bad, really, but sparring isn’t the same as fighting. What we really need is a field test, with an opponent who won’t hold back. I was thinking we could fly you somewhere isolated. An island, maybe, or the middle of the desert. Or Antarctica. How does the Hulk feel about penguins?”

He stared at her. “You’re insane.”

“It’s my understanding the Hulk’s indestructible, so you don’t have to worry about getting hurt.”

“That’s … really … not what I was worried about.” 

“I think it would be a valuable exercise for all of us. We’d get a chance to test our tactical coordination under high stress conditions, and you might learn to develop some control.”

“High stress conditions,” he repeated wryly. “You don’t get it. None of you do. There’s no controlling the other guy.”

“Stark seems to think otherwise.”

“Stark’s wrong.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But if nothing else it would help us develop some better strategies for dealing with the Hulk next time he goes on a rampage.”

“Or maybe you’d be teaching him that Avengers are for smashing,” Bruce said darkly.

She smiled faintly. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Maybe you should be. Or have you forgotten how I nearly killed you?”

The smile slid from her face. “I haven’t forgotten.”

His memories from when he was changed were always a bit of a blur, a jumble of hazy sensory data. The thing that always seemed to stick with him the most was the other guy’s emotions. Want. Need. Hate. Fear. They burned so strongly they left scar tissue behind. Even now, Bruce could remember what Natasha’s fear had smelled like. He remembered how the other guy had reveled in it. What it felt like to want to crush the life out of her.

“You talk to Steve about any of this?” he asked.

“I thought I should talk to you first,” she said. “If you’re not comfortable—”

“I’m not comfortable.”

“Then I’ll drop it,” she said.

She wasn’t going to drop it, though. He knew that as certainly as he knew that the earth traveled around the sun.

She stood up. “Maybe just think about it. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

She arched her brow like she didn’t believe him. “You know, Tony Stark is a lot of things, but wrong is almost never one of them.”


	6. Chapter 6

_“If the material is fluid, the displacement of the plate increases continually with time under a constant shearing force. This means there is no relationship between the displacement, or deformation, and the force.”_

 

Steve glanced nervously around the coffee shop and tugged the brim of his Yankees cap down lower as he waited for his mocha latte. The shop was packed with mid-afternoon coffee-seekers and the TV above the counter was tuned to a 24-hour news channel doing a segment on the Avengers. Or, more specifically, speculating about what had happened to all of the Avengers and whether or not they were ever coming back.

The disappearing act had been Pepper’s idea initially. They needed to lower expectations, she’d advised. Don’t let people get too excited, allow some of the furor to die down. And Director Fury had agreed. It was in everyone’s best interest, he’d suggested rather strenuously, to let the rest of the world—particularly the Council—believe the Avengers were just a one-show engagement. At least until they were a little more organized and ready to make their official debut on their own terms. 

Tony hadn’t liked going along with anything Fury recommended—one of his conditions for continuing the Avengers Initiative was that they no longer be affiliated with SHIELD in any way—but even he’d seen the wisdom in keeping a low profile until they’d gotten their act together. 

SHIELD’s parting gift had been helping them drop off the radar, orchestrating a campaign of disinformation and providing carefully-constructed false identities for Steve, Bruce, and Thor (in the event of his return) so they could remain incognito. Tony, of course, wasn’t in a position to simply disappear. 

Stark Industries had issued a press release stating that for the time being, Tony Stark was one-hundred percent focused on rebuilding efforts in Manhattan, and soundly denying that he had any knowledge of the current whereabouts or intentions of Steve Rogers, Thor, the Hulk, or the government agents code-named Black Widow and Hawkeye. Pepper had even managed to keep Tony on a short leash all summer, limiting his public exposure to a single appearance at a celebrity telethon to raise money for the cleanup of Manhattan.

The TV screen in the coffee shop was currently showing the same overused clip of a tuxedoed Tony Stark smirking on the red carpet. _“What do you think Captain America is up to?”_ asked the reporter, thrusting a microphone into Tony’s face. _“Is he ever coming back?”_ Tony, his eyes shielded by a pair of gaudy sunglasses, offered a convincingly sincere shrug and said: _“Beats me, I haven’t heard from the guy in months. Personally, I like to think he’s lying on a beach somewhere, sipping a fruity cocktail out of a coconut while bikini-clad women rub suntan lotion on his chest. After seventy years of service to his country, I think he’s earned a little fun, don’t you?”_

Steve cringed and hunched his shoulders, regretting the impulse that had driven him out of Stark Tower in the middle of a workday. Fortunately, none of the other patrons in the coffee shop seemed to be paying much attention to the television, or to him.

“Venti mocha latte,” the woman behind the counter called out.

Steve started to reach for his drink but pulled up short when the young woman next to him reached for it at the same time. “Pardon me,” he said, politely withdrawing his hand. 

“Oh, shit, this one’s yours, isn’t it?” The young woman pushed the drink towards him sheepishly. “Sorry.” 

“No, please,” Steve said, gesturing that she should take it. “I’ll wait for the next one.”

“Wow, a gentleman,” she said, stuffing a dollar in the tip jar before picking up the cup. “And one with excellent taste in mocha lattes, too. They’re like the best here, aren’t they? And they always make those little pictures in the foam, I totally love that. Look, I got a panda!” She held the cup out so he could see. 

Steve leaned in to look, close enough that he could smell her shampoo. It smelled like strawberries. He straightened quickly and sidled back a step, into safer territory.

“They are quite good here,” he agreed, making what he was fairly certain was an unsuccessful attempt to hide his nervousness. He’d never really gotten the hang of talking to women in social situations. As long as he was in a professional setting everything was fine, but outside of work he invariably felt like he was in a leaky boat without a paddle. “I think the ones at the cafe by my apartment in Brooklyn are even better,” he added lamely.

“Brooklyn, huh?” The woman inclined her head and smiled at him. She had a nice smile and if she was aware of his awkwardness she gave no indication. “Well, for now I’m just gonna have to settle for the ones that are walking distance from Stark Tower. A girl needs her mocha latte fix to make it through the workday.”

“You work at Stark?” Steve asked, vaguely alarmed. Because _of course_ the first normal girl he’d tried to talk to in the twenty-first century would turn out to work for Tony.

She gave him a wry grimace. “That’s me: faceless corporate drone extraordinaire. But don’t worry—” She stood on her tiptoes and leaned in so they were nearly cheek to cheek and her lips were right next to his ear; it took nearly all of Steve’s willpower not to jump back in panic. “Your secret’s safe with me, Cap,” she whispered.

He felt himself redden. “Oh,” he stammered, backing away. “That’s… um… okay.” What was taking that mocha latte so long? Were they milking the cow back there?

“It’s cool,” she said conspiratorially. “I mean, if everyone knew, you wouldn’t be able to go out for coffee anymore because there’d be, like, hordes of love-crazed groupies following you around everywhere you went.”

Steve swallowed, his eyes scanning the room for the quickest escape routes. He was prepared to abandon his mocha latte if necessary. “I don’t know about that…” 

She shrugged lightly. “It must kind of suck for you. I mean, I’ll bet you’d rather just be treated like a regular dude, am I right?”

“I suppose I would,” he admitted cautiously. “I never really liked it when people made a fuss.”

She nodded, blowing on the top of her latte to cool it off. “I totally get that.” 

He cleared his throat, deciding for the time being against making a run for it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name…” 

“Darcy,” she told him.

“Another venti mocha latte,” shouted the woman behind the counter.

Finally. Steve turned and retrieved his drink. 

“What picture did you get?” Darcy asked.

He held out the cup so she could see. “A heart.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow and cocked her head at the woman behind the counter. “Someone likes you.”

He felt himself blush again. “Well… um…” he started and then trailed off, not really sure what do next. 

The man standing behind him sneezed loudly. 

“God bless you,” Steve and Darcy automatically said at the same time. 

Steve looked Darcy and smiled. 

She smiled back. 

“Can I walk you back to work, Darcy?” he asked.

“Fuck!” Clint shouted, hopping on one foot. “Ow! Goddammit, Thor, do you have to leave your fucking hammer out all the time? That’s like the third time this week I’ve stubbed my toe!”

Natasha didn’t bother to hide her snicker of amusement.

“My apologies,” Thor said, scooping Mjölnir off the floor and depositing it behind the couch. 

“At least keep it out of the pathways,” Clint grumbled, sinking down beside Natasha and rubbing his sore foot.

“Poor baby,” she smirked at him. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

“Fuck off,” Clint muttered, the subtle curl of his mouth belying the grouchy tone. Natasha burrowed closer and he draped an arm around her.

“Anyone seen Tony?” Steve asked. It was movie night again and so far their host was a no show. 

“If he’s not here, does that mean movie night’s canceled?” Natasha asked hopefully. They were supposed to watch _Independence Day_ this week, a prospect she found almost as enticing as involuntary dental surgery. She’d suggested _The Amityville Horror_ instead, but had been outvoted. Allegedly. Her requests for a recount had been soundly denied. 

“No,” Steve said, shooting her a disapproving look. “He’ll be here.”

Bruce wasn’t there either, but that didn’t really surprise Natasha. There was a pretty good chance that one was her fault.

The elevator doors opened and Tony strode in with an annoyed look on his face. “Movie night’s canceled,” he announced.

“What?” Steve said, looking disappointed. “Why?”

“Because instead we’re going to talk about this,” Tony said, tossing something small and electronic onto the coffee table.

Natasha made sure her expression and her body language didn’t change, but her mind began racing through a number of scenarios—all of them bad. 

“What is this tiny object?” Thor asked, picking it up and squinting at it.

“It’s an electronic listening device,” Natasha said quietly. “A bug.”

“Gold star for the super spy,” Tony said, swinging around to stare at her, his eyes narrowed. 

“Where’d you find that?” Steve asked.

“In my lab,” Tony said. “I found four of them, in fact. One in the gym, one in the kitchen, and one in this very room. Anyone care to guess the provenance of this particular piece of tech?”

Clint stood up and took the bug from Thor. “It’s SHIELD tech,” he said, turning it over in his hand. He glanced at Natasha, frowning. 

“SHIELD tech,” Tony repeated, his attention still fixed pointedly on Natasha. “Interesting.”

“SHIELD has been listening to our private conversations?” Thor asked angrily. “Spying on us?” He looked from Tony to Natasha, and then to Clint, the confusion in his expression melting into fury.

“Hang on a fucking minute,” Clint said looking at all the suddenly suspicious faces around him. “You don’t think _we_ had something to do with this?” 

“Well, let’s see,” Tony said, his focus never wavering from Natasha. “SHIELD spy tech … SHIELD spies.” 

Clint’s voice was low and steely. “We don’t work for SHIELD anymore.” 

Tony finally tore his attention away from Natasha in order to eye Clint hostilely. “And we’re just supposed to take your word for that, I suppose? You’re only here because _she_ said you two were a package deal. But what do we really know about you, except that you were willing to betray your own side once before? Not exactly building a case for trust.”

Natasha’s jaw clenched. “That was the Tesseract,” she said. “It could have happened to any one of us. It nearly did happen to Steve in Stuttgart before you showed up.”

“You’re spies,” Tony said coldly. “You stab people in the back for a living.”

Thor took a menacing step towards Clint, fists clenched. “You would betray us?” he demanded.

Natasha didn’t move from her seat on the couch, but she was tensed like a bowstring, her mind cataloguing all the ways she could temporarily incapacitate Thor if necessary.

“Let’s just take a breath,” Steve said, forcing himself between them.

“You take a fucking breath,” Clint snapped. “I should have known this would happen.”

“To be fair, it’s not just you I don’t trust,” Tony said, his gaze sliding back to Natasha. He seemed wholly unaffected by the tension in the room. “Agent Romanoff’s the one going on lunch dates with Fury’s minions, after all.”

It took a considerable effort for Natasha to refrain from launching herself at him and choking him out with her bare hands. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me?” she snarled.

“Spying on the spy?” Tony retorted. “It only seemed prudent.”

“What are you talking about?” Clint demanded. “What lunch date?”

“She met with Maria Hill last week.” Tony said, raising an eyebrow at Clint. “She didn’t tell you? Interesting.” 

Clint stared at Natasha, his expression shifting from disbelief to one of utter betrayal. She was going to kill Tony Stark. Slowly and painfully. 

“Care to explain yourself?” Steve asked Natasha.

“I don’t owe an explanation to anyone in this room,” she replied icily.

“So, I guess the question is, which one of you is the SHIELD mole?” Tony mused. “Or is it both of you? Are you in on it together or is Fury playing you against one other?” 

“If you want me off the team, just say the word,” Clint announced, stone-faced.

“I want you off the team,” Tony replied flatly.

“As do I,” Thor said. “I will not go into battle with a traitor at my back. Not again.”

“Hang on,” Steve interjected. “Before anyone does anything rash, let’s talk about this.”

“If he goes, I go,” Natasha said.

“Don’t do me any more favors,” Clint spat.

“I’m absolutely fine if you’re both gone,” Tony said. “For the record.”

“No one’s leaving the team,” Steve said firmly. “Not until—” 

He was interrupted by a loud, rumbling crash that vibrated up through the floor of the tower and rattled all the windows. Natasha was on her feet immediately. “Where’s Banner?” she asked.

“JARVIS,” Tony barked. “What the hell was that? Talk to me.”

There was the briefest of pauses before the genteel voice of Tony’s A.I. answered. “Dr. Banner is still in his lab, sir. The disturbance did not originate in Stark Tower.”

Tony exhaled. “That’s a relief, I guess. Where _did_ it come from?”

“Over there,” Steve said. He was standing at the picture window, pointing down at the city beneath them. They all moved to the window, following the line of his finger to a large cloud of smoke billowing up from the ground a few blocks away. It was large enough and thick enough to obscure several city blocks.

“What is it?” Thor asked. “An explosion?”

Tony frowned. “Could be… but the smoke doesn’t look right.”

“No heat,” Clint said, shaking his head. “Looks more like a debris cloud.” 

“Sir, I’m finding reports of a crane collapse at a nearby construction site,” JARVIS interjected. 

“Shit,” Tony breathed.

“How bad?” Steve asked.

“Early eyewitness accounts seem to indicate extensive damage to a number of adjacent buildings,” JARVIS answered.

“Get me a video feed,” Tony said. “Satellite, traffic cams, security, ATM, anything you can find in the area, show it to me.”

The TV snapped on. At first the picture on the screen was so hazy it was impossible to make out much of anything. It was a just a nebulous gray blur, like staring through the inside of a cloud. Then the screen divided into four different camera views. Two of the others were just as hazy and useless as the first, but the fourth camera was at a greater distance from the accident, affording a slightly better perspective. 

Natasha squinted at it, trying to make some sense of the images she was seeing. As the dust cloud settled somewhat she was able to make out the outline of a building in the background. Or, at least, part of the outline of a building. It had been completely dissected by the fallen crane. One whole side of the building had sheered off, leaving nothing but a giant pile of rubble trapped beneath the twisted metal behemoth that had crushed it.

“That’s bad,” Tony said quietly. “Really, really bad.”

“Let’s go,” Steve said, already moving towards the elevator. “They’re going to need all the help they can get with search and rescue.” He paused, his gaze falling pointedly on Clint and Natasha. “All hands on deck.”

Natasha nodded and started running for the stairwell.


	7. Chapter 7

_ “There is, of course, no such thing in practice as an ideal fluid. All fluids are to some extent compressible, and all fluids are to some extent viscous, so that adjacent fluid elements exert both normal and tangential forces on one another across their common interface.” _

 

The extent of the cataclysm was difficult to process. What had been a perfectly sturdy building full of office workers toiling away at their dull office jobs, was, in the space of an instant, reduced to a nightmarish scene of death and devastation.

Tony took one look at it and called Bruce.

“I’m watching it on TV now,” Bruce said when he picked up. “It’s horrific.”

“You should see it close up.” Tony grunted as he lifted a large piece of twisted metal so two EMTs could pull a woman out of the rubble. “Get down here, we need you.” 

“No,” Bruce said. “You really don’t.”

Tony shot up into the air and alighted next to a piece of what looked like it had once been a part of the roof, and was now wedged beneath a portion of the toppled crane. “You’re right,” he said, straining to shift the stubborn chunk of debris. “We need the other guy.”

“You definitely do not need him.”

“There are people trapped in there, Banner. People who are still alive. But they won’t be for much longer and there aren’t enough of us with the strength to get to them. It’s taking too long. The Hulk could do it, he could get to them.”

“He could kill them,” Bruce said, sounding scared. “He could make it worse. So much worse.”

Rogers bounded up and landed heavily beside Tony. Between the two of them, they managed to move the chunk of roof out of the way. Beneath it was another piece of debris, almost as large. Sticking out from under that was a bloodied hand. The hand had a wedding ring on it.

“He could help,” Tony said grimly. Then he cut the connection and reached for the next piece of rubble. 

Clint wasn’t strong, not like Thor or Iron Man or Captain America, but he was agile, thanks to his acrobat training, and his compact size made it relatively easy for him to scale the wreckage, moving swiftly and nimbly over the rubble without disturbing it. Even in the failing light, his keen eyesight made him adept at spotting signs of survivors so he could guide one of the rescue teams to them. 

“A little more to the left,” Clint called up to Thor, who was muscling a large chunk of debris out of the way. 

The Norse god grunted and the debris shifted to the side, opening up a gap just wide enough to allow Clint to reach the woman trapped behind it. He sprang forward, his hand moving to her throat to search for a pulse. He was relieved when he felt it throbbing beneath his fingers, strong and steady.

Her eyelids fluttered open. “Am I dead?” she whispered horsely.

Clint smiled at her. “Not today, you’re not.” 

Thor had always been a warrior. That was his role—his purpose. He had never given much thought to helping people, outside of the help he rendered by keeping the realm safe from its enemies. Recently, he had come to realize that he had been blind to much of the suffering around him. He had always taken his privilege for granted, had exercised very little compassion, offered no succor to the wretched and the weak. It filled him with shame to think of it.

Perhaps if he had been a different man, a better man, his brother would not have turned on him.

Now, he looked with very different eyes upon these mortals who had been caught in the midst of a terrible and unexpected tragedy. He saw all of their pain and their fear and their limitless courage, and he opened his heart to it.

Clint emerged from a narrow maw in the wreckage cradling an injured woman in his arms. Thor bent down to take her from him. 

She was young, close to the same age as Jane. And tiny, as small and fragile as a bird. Blood streamed from a gash on her head and one of her arms was badly broken. He heard her whimper in pain as he gathered her into his arms, but her eyes were clear and bright as they looked up at him. 

“You’re the Avengers, aren’t you?” she asked. Her voice was thin, weak. 

Thor nodded.

“You came back to save us. I knew you would.” 

Thor felt his eyes well with tears as he carried her to safety.

Natasha wriggled through a narrow fissure in the rubble. She found the foot she’d seen from above, and felt her way up the leg to the body of the man it belonged to. His skin was cold to the touch, and she wasn’t surprised when she was unable to find any signs of life. 

“Is anyone down here?” she called out loudly. “Shout if you can hear me.” She shined her light around the cramped space, looking signs of survivors while she listened for a response. There was nothing. 

She squeezed her way back out through the gap and shook her head at Steve, who was waiting for her above. He extended an arm and levered her up to where he was standing. 

“Over here!” one of the rescue workers called out, waving them over. “I think I heard someone under there!”

Natasha and Steve hurried over. There was a large section of collapsed wall pinned beneath a twisted length of girder. At one end was a narrow gap leading down into yawning blackness.

“You think you can fit through there?” Steve asked dubiously.

“Only one way to find out,” Natasha said. 

The passage was tight—even tighter than the last one had been—but she managed to squeeze her way though it. Once she was in she was pleased to discover it opened up into a larger space so she had some room to move around. “Anyone here?” she called out. 

She heard a muffled moan in response and made her way towards the sound. She had to dig down into the debris, but eventually she found him. He was conscious—barely—but one of his legs was badly broken and he was bleeding profusely from a wound in his abdomen. 

“Widow? What’s your status?” Steve asked over the comms.

“He’s here, I’ve got him,” she answered, putting pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding. “But he’s badly injured. You’re going to have to widen that opening so we can get a stretcher down here.”

“Copy that,” Steve said. 

A moment later she heard the sound of metal groaning and the section of wall overhead shifted. Plaster and dust rained down from above and she did her best to shield the injured man’s body with her own. When the shower was over she glanced at the opening, but it was no wider than it had been before.

“It’s stuck,” Steve reported. “I need to get some help. Hold on.”

“Hurry,” Natasha said. Her hands were covered in the man’s blood, which was still flowing freely despite her efforts to staunch it. He didn’t have much time.

All of a sudden there was a scream of metal scraping against metal and the collapsed wall overhead was flung aside. The beam of a halogen construction light shined down on her, blinding her in the sudden brightness. She looked up, blinking to clear her vision, and saw the Hulk looming over her.

Steve’s head popped into view beside him. “I found help,” he said, grinning down at her.

Absurdly, Steve had a children’s nursery rhyme stuck in his head. 

_Ring-a-round a rosie, a pocket full of posies._

He couldn’t seem to shake the cursed thing, no matter how hard he tried to think about other things. Like for instance the crumpled, bloodied remains of some poor soul being carried away by paramedics.

_Ashes, ashes, we all fall down._

“I need some help!” a man cried out, waving to him. Steve hurried over to lend his assistance. 

“Over there,” the man said, pointing. He was bloodied and bruised, holding his arm against his chest as if it were injured, but he appeared to be one of the lucky ones. “I heard a call for help when I was making my way out. Back in that direction.”

The area he’d indicated was close to the dead center of the wreckage, a place where the rescue crews hadn’t yet reached. Steve couldn’t even imagine how the man had managed to climb so far on his own with only one good arm. It was miraculous.

The Hulk was working with Thor, tossing the heaviest chunks of debris out of the way, so Steve motioned to Natasha and the two of them began picking their way over to the area the man had indicated. It was slow and precarious going, and not for the first time Steve cursed the fact that he couldn’t fly like Iron Man or Thor. For all his super soldier strength, sometimes he still couldn’t do enough. There always seemed to be things he couldn’t lift, places he couldn’t reach. People he couldn’t save. 

Natasha was far lighter and more fleet-footed, so she was able to make better progress over the wreckage than he was. She was a good thirty yards out in front of him when she stopped and shouted back that she’d found someone. 

Which was when Steve felt a shiver run through the rubble beneath him. There was chilling groan from deep within the wreckage, and then the world began to tilt.

“Fall back!” he heard someone shout behind him. “Everyone move, now!” 

“Widow!” he shouted into the comm. “Get out of there!”

The piece of debris Steve was standing on was sliding beneath him. He jumped, landed unsteadily, and felt his new perch begin to shift as well. Summoning all his strength, he jumped again, propelling himself towards solid ground. He just barely managed to make it to safety as the spot he’d been standing seconds before caved in completely, the disturbance radiating outward through the debris pile like a shockwave. 

And Natasha was still stuck out there, struggling for purchase as everything around her slid inexorably towards the growing crater.

_Ashes, ashes, we all fall down._

Natasha felt the tremor run through the wreckage and had just enough time to grab hold of something relatively solid before the world began to shift underneath her. 

She was only vaguely aware of Rogers shouting in her ear as the piece of rubble she was clinging to lurched precariously, threatening to spill her off. She launched herself into the air, twisting and landing on another, higher perch, but as soon as she’d gotten a handhold it, too, began to slide. Her eyes scanned desperately for a path to safety, but everything around her was shifting and contorting as the wreckage collapsed under its own weight. 

Dust ballooned up around her and she felt a faint twinge of pain in her leg as she half jumped, half tumbled onto a broad, flat piece of rubble that might once have been part of a load-bearing wall. She scrabbled for a better grip, a safer position, but there was simply nothing stable to hold onto; nowhere she could go.

And then she heard a familiar electronic hum. There was a rush of warm air and the next thing she knew Stark had ahold of her and was flying her up and over the collapsing pile of rubble. He slowed down just enough to drop her on solid ground before arcing up and away to buzz the surface of the rubble again, looking for more people to pluck from danger. 

Clint and Steve hurried over, looking worried. “You okay?” Clint asked, and she managed a curt nod as she coughed dust out of her lungs.

“There’s someone trapped in there,” she managed horsely. “He was still alive. I heard him, but I couldn’t get to him. We have to go back in.”

“It’s too dangerous right now,” the chief of one of the fire rescue crews told them, shaking his head. “Whole pile’s gone unstable. We’ve got to get that crane moved off of there, take some of the weight off first.”

“Iron Man, you hear that?” Steve said into the comm.

“On it,” Tony answered. “Thor, see if you can find some chains and we’ll see how the Hulk likes playing tug-o-war.”

“That looks pretty bad,” Steve said, gesturing at Natasha’s leg.

She looked down. Blood was streaming from a laceration in her calf. “I’m fine,” she said. It was nothing, she could deal with it later herself. 

But Steve had already flagged down a paramedic. She waited impatiently while he cleaned and bandaged the wound. All she could think about was that voice she’d heard, weak and frightened, calling out for help. Unanswered.

“Where’s Barton?” she asked suddenly.

“He was right here…” Steve said, casting his eyes around.

But Natasha had already spotted Clint, right where she was afraid he’d be. Picking his way across the wreckage, heading down into the newly formed crater. 

“Hawkeye, fall back,” Steve barked into the comm. “That’s an order.”

The only response was silence. Clint had disappeared over the lip of the crater and was out of sight. Natasha started forward but Steve grabbed hold of her arm. “The pile’s unstable. You try to go out there with him, and you’re liable to make it worse.”

“I found him,” Clint said finally. “He’s here and he’s still alive.”

“Iron Man, Hawkeye needs an assist,” Steve said into the comm. “He’s found another survivor.”

“Little busy right now,” Stark gritted out. He was hovering in the air above the crane, trying to lever it up off the wreckage. Below him, Thor and the Hulk were straining to pull on several lengths of heavy chain that they had managed to wrap around the body of the crane. They were making progress, but it was slow going.

“Hold position, Hawkeye,” Steve ordered. “It’s going to to be a few minutes before I can get you an airlift out of there.”

“Copy that,” Clint replied. “He seems stable for the moment. Awaiting assistance.”

Natasha watched tensely as, bit by bit, Stark and the others moved the crane off the rubble. They’d almost gotten it all the way onto solid ground when there was a gut-churning screech from deep within the wreckage and the rubble started to shift again, sending an avalanche of debris crashing down into the crater where Clint was.

She surged forward, but Steve grabbed her and held her back. 

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She struggled against him, but her heart wasn’t in it. She knew he was right. 

Natasha sagged in Steve’s arms, watching numbly as Clint was buried beneath the rubble.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter posted. I know it was mean to make you wait after that cliffhanger, but I've been having a week and a half and it's gotten in the way of putting the finishing touches on the last little bit.

_“We can see now, in general terms, why viscous effects become important in a boundary layer. The reason is that the velocity gradients in a boundary layer are much larger than they are in the main part of the flow, because a substantial change in velocity is taking place across a very thin layer.”_

 

Clint woke to the scent of antiseptic and the hum of fluorescent lights. 

He kept his eyes closed while he took stock of himself. There was an I.V. in his arm and underneath the numbing haze of painkillers he could feel a dull throb in the back of his head. His ribs hurt, too, but he couldn’t tell if they were actually cracked or just bruised. The most alarming thing, though, was that he was completely numb from the waist down.

“I know you’re awake,” Natasha said. “You might as well stop pretending.”

Clint opened his eyes. His left leg was encased in a large metal contraption with bolts and screws sticking out all over. It looked like some kind of medieval torture device. 

“Compound tibial fracture,” she told him, answering his unspoken question. “It’s nothing.” She waved her hand like it was a paper cut.

“I guess this means I’m not dead,” he said hoarsely. 

Something flickered across Tasha’s face, there and then gone before he could get a read on it. She unfolded herself from the armchair and stretched, pulling each of her arms behind her head one at a time. She’d changed out of her tac suit, but there was still dust in her hair and a smudge of dirt along her jawline, which meant she hadn’t gone home since the accident. 

“My ribs?” he asked, wincing as he tried to change position.

“Just bruised,” she said, perching on the edge of his bed. She didn’t look happy.

“Could I have some water?” 

“Here,” she said, thrusting a paper cup at him. “Have an ice chip.”

He tipped a piece of ice into his mouth and chewed. It didn’t do a lot for his thirst. “You’re a regular Florence Nightingale.”

“You want a nurse, press the button.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you’re mad at me.”

Her frown deepened. “Only because you’re an idiot.”

He sighed and then winced at the pain it caused in his side. “I’ve been conscious for all of two minutes, Nat, could we maybe save the after-action lecture for later?”

“You didn’t need to put yourself at risk,” she snapped, because apparently they couldn’t save the lecture. “You know as well as I do that Stark could have gotten the guy out safely if you’d just waited five minutes.”

“I didn’t know that the guy had five minutes. How is he, by the way? Did he…”

“He’s fine,” she said tersely. “You saved his life. You’re still an idiot.”

Clint tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. He was looking at weeks of hobbling around on crutches, followed by physical therapy and rehab. It was going to be months before his leg was one-hundred percent again. If then. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, after all.

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” she said, a little more gently. “Especially not to _them_.”

He was quiet for a long time. And then he said, almost under his breath, “Maybe I needed to prove something to myself.” 

He felt Tasha shift on the bed, and then she was lying beside him with her head resting on his shoulder. Her hand slipped into his. “That’s what makes you an idiot.”

Clint closed his eyes. He could still remember every second of his time under Loki’s control. It was like a movie playing on a constant loop in his head. For whatever reason, those memories were sharper than any others. Everything else felt strangely distant, like it had happened to someone else. The Tesseract memories blotted out the good memories—the real memories—and he couldn’t seem to get them out of his head. 

Even now, he could recall how it felt to plan Tasha’s death far more clearly than he could remember making love to her two nights ago. 

He pulled her closer and pressed a kiss into the top of her head.

“Mocha latte?”

Steve looked up, surprised. “Darcy? What are you—how’d you get here?” 

The whole team had been camped out at the hospital all night while Barton was in surgery. Pepper had made sure they were tucked away in a private wing with security at every access point to keep them away from the prying eyes of the public and the press.

Darcy pressed the cup into his hand and cocked her head to the side. “See that chick over there? Thor’s girlfriend? That’s my friend Jane. We thought maybe you guys could use a caffeine intervention after the night you’ve had.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, wrapping his hands gratefully around the steaming cup of coffee. “That’s really nice of you.”

Darcy shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “So is he going to be okay?”

Steve nodded. “The doctor says he’s going to be fine.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I talked to him once at work. Hawkeye, I mean, not the doctor. Duh. He seems pretty cool.”

Steve stared at the plastic lid on his coffee. “He risked his life to save someone else tonight.”

“Well, yeah,” Darcy said, as if it was something that happened every day. “That’s what heroes do, right?”

“I guess so,” Steve replied numbly. Maybe it did happen every day. Barton had probably had dozens of close calls when he was working for SHIELD. Maybe even hundreds. 

It was different when it happened on Steve’s watch, though. When it was someone who was under his command.

“I could sit with you while you wait,” Darcy suggested uncertainly. “I mean, if you wanted?”

Steve looked up at her. “I’d like that a lot.”

“Psst,” Tony said, nudging Pepper in the arm.

“What?” she replied without looking up from her phone.

“What do you make of that?” He gestured surreptitiously at Rogers, who appeared, in defiance of all expectation, to be chatting up the girl from Dr. Foster’s lab.

Pepper looked over at them, then back at her phone. “I don’t make anything of it, because it’s none of my business.”

“That’s only because you’re not a romantic like me.” 

In fact, it wasn’t so much that Tony was a romantic as that he was pathologically insecure. Beneath the Tom Ford suits and Versace sunglasses, he harbored an unshakable belief that he was fundamentally, deeply unlovable. He had, therefore, what he considered a vested interest in seeing to it that every attractive, eligible male within a ten-mile radius of Pepper was otherwise preoccupied. 

And since Captain America was pretty much the shining pinnacle of attractive and eligible, he obviously posed a clear and present threat to Tony’s happiness so long as he remained unattached.

Rogers and the girl were laughing quietly together now. Tony smiled to himself when he saw her hand touch Steve’s leg. This was extremely promising. 

“I guess we’ll find out who the real romantic is when our anniversary rolls around,” Pepper said quietly.

Tony stopped staring at Steve. “Is that a challenge, Potts?” 

She shot him one of her sly half-smiles, the kind that made him go weak in the knees. 

He tilted his head, the corner of his mouth curving playfully. “You know what I love about hospitals? All those empty rooms full of beds. What do you say we put one of them to good use?” It wasn’t even close to his best line and he knew it, but in his defense it had been a really long night. 

“Stop it,” Pepper said, smiling slightly. 

He hadn’t actually expected his overture to meet with any success, but he was gratified to see a flush coloring her neck as she turned her attention back to her phone. 

“Hmmm,” she said, frowning.

“Hmmm what?” Tony asked, pivoting so he could keep an eye on Steve. The chances of whatever work nonsense Pepper was preoccupied by actually being of interest to him were approximately 1 in 1,000.

“I asked the head of security to review the last three months of surveillance footage on the penthouse floors.”

“Uh huh,” Tony said, only half listening. Rogers and his new lady friend were drinking out of the same coffee cup now. Excellent.

“I think he found the SHIELD mole.”

“What?” Tony said, swinging his gaze back to Pepper. She’d commanded his undivided attention now.

“Take a look at this.” She handed him her phone. On it was a video from one of the security feeds in the penthouse common area. A man in a food services uniform was wheeling a hand truck full of supplies into the commissary. 

Tony squinted at the screen. “And? He’s delivering Tastykakes and Pop Tarts. I don’t get it.”

“Keep watching,” Pepper said.

When he’d finished unloading his delivery, the man swiveled the cart and started wheeling it out of the commissary. As he passed through the doorway he raised one of his arms and brushed his fingers over the top of the doorframe. To the casual observer it looked like he’d innocently slapped the top of the doorway on his way out. But Tony wasn’t a casual observer, and he happened to know that was the exact spot where one of the bugs had been planted. 

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “Who is that?”

“A temp,” Pepper said. “He worked for us in food service for a few days. The name he supplied on his application turns out to be a fake, and the numbers he gave for his references are all out of service now.”

“Of course they are,” Tony said passing her back the phone. 

“We’ll obviously have to completely revamp our screening process,” Pepper sighed, fingers flying as she began issuing a string of new orders to her underlings. She shot Tony a sideways look without pausing. “And I guess you owe someone an apology.”

He snorted indignantly. “Hey, just because he didn’t do this, doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything.”

Pepper stopped typing and gave him one of her looks. The kind that meant she was disappointed in him. “How you can you say that after tonight?”

“Tonight doesn’t change anything,” Tony said stubbornly.

“Really? So you’ve just been standing vigil at the hospital all night so you can be sure and fire him as soon as he’s conscious, is that it?”

“Something like that,” Tony mumbled.

She opened her mouth to reply but Romanoff’s sudden appearance in the waiting room forestalled any further conversation on the subject.

“He’s awake,” Natasha announced.

“Have they said how long they’re planning to keep you here?” Steve asked. He was obviously trying to put on a cheerful face, but there was a hollow ring to it, like the newsreel footage of his old USO acts.

The Avengers were all standing around Clint’s room, which, while admittedly spacious for a hospital room (thanks to Pepper) had begun to feel uncomfortably close once it was packed with super soldiers and gods and genius scientists. 

Natasha had stationed herself by the door so she could keep a sharp eye on everyone. She was fully prepared to step in and act as bouncer, should anyone decide not to play nice with Clint. He hadn’t even wanted visitors, but she’d pressured him into it. The team had all been sitting vigil in the waiting room the whole time he was surgery; she figured that had to count for something. She hoped so, anyway.

“A few more days, I guess,” Clint said dully. “They want to do another surgery when the swelling goes down.” 

“They’re putting in an intramedullary rod,” Bruce said, flipping through Clint’s chart. He almost sounded excited at the prospect. 

Thor offered a forced-looking grin. “They will make you into a super soldier like the Captain of America.”

“Yeah, right,” Clint said. “Minus all the extra strength and speed and healing.”

“But with bonus wanding at metal detectors,” Tony pointed out. 

There was a momentary lull in the conversation. An awkward lull. Thor was staring down at the floor and shifting his weight from one foot to the other; Steve was so uptight he’d unconsciously slipped into parade rest. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.

Bruce set the chart down and slipped his reading glasses into his breast pocket. He looked around the room curiously. Natasha wondered if anyone had even told him what had happened before the crane accident.

Tony cleared his throat. “Oh, hey, I’ve got some more good news. Turns out neither of you guys planted those bugs in the tower.” He glanced hopefully from Clint to Natasha. “Yay?”

Natasha arched a single, deadly eyebrow. “Since we both knew that already, it doesn’t really fall into the category of news, does it?” 

“Hmmm,” Tony said, tapping his chin. “You may be right about that. Well, whatever. Bygones, right?”

Clint didn’t say anything. Neither did Natasha. 

And then Steve said, very quietly, “Tony.”

“Okay, fine,” Tony said, throwing up his hands in an overly dramatic gesture of capitulation. “I’m sorry, all right? I was wrong, I shouldn’t have accused you of planting bugs.”

Natasha looked over at Clint. He was staring down at his hands, running his thumb over the callouses on his palm. His expression was so blank even she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

A nurse bustled in to check the drip on Clint’s I.V. “The patient needs to get some rest now,” she announced in a tone that clearly indicated she was not going to truck with any arguments, not even from alleged superheroes. “You can come back tomorrow if you like.”

Tony smiled tightly. “You heard the lady. Let’s leave Barton to his morphine, shall we?” He turned on his heel and walked out. After a moment Bruce and Thor shuffled after him. 

Steve hesitated by the door. “Natasha?”

“I’m staying,” she said. 

Steve nodded. He cast an uncertain look at Clint and then he too was gone. The nurse finished adjusting Clint’s I.V. and left, giving Natasha the side-eye on her way out.

“You should go,” Clint said. “Get some rest yourself.”

Natasha lowered herself into the chair beside the bed. “No way you’re getting rid of me that easily, Barton.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how I said this thing would be nine chapters long? Whoops. Turns out there's an epilogue after this one.

_“If the fluid is heterogeneous, consisting of individual layers each of constant density, then the pressure varies linearly with a different slope in each layer and the preceding analyses must be remedied by computing and summing the separate contributions to the forces and momentums.”_

 

It was uncomfortably quiet in the limo on the ride back to Stark Tower. 

Tony refused to attribute it to anything other than simple exhaustion. He certainly wasn’t feeling the least bit guilty. No, sir. Nor was he feeling in any way hurt that his apology—an apology he’d very generously offered even though _none of this_ was his fault—hadn’t been received as graciously as it deserved. Nope. 

Just because he was hunched down sideways in his seat, resting his head against the window with his eyes closed, didn’t mean he was pouting. He was just tired. That was all.

“That probably could have gone better,” Steve said after a while, breaking the silence. 

“I do not blame them for being angry with us,” Thor said. “We accused them of betraying us, and in so doing, it is we who have betrayed our teammates.”

“I feel the need to point out,” Tony said without bothering to open his eyes, “that just because they weren’t responsible for the bugs doesn’t mean they aren’t still working for Fury.”

“Come on, Tony,” Steve said with a weary sigh. 

“No, he’s right,” Bruce said quietly. 

“Ah ha!” Tony said, sitting up and pointing at Bruce. “See!”

“If you’d talked to me before you confronted Barton and Romanoff,” Bruce said, shooting Tony a sideways look, “I’d have told you that they’re both too smart to get caught doing something as obvious as planting surveillance equipment. But if Fury’s this interested in keeping tabs on us, you can bet they’re part of his plan somehow.”

No one spoke as the limo pulled into the garage beneath Stark Tower and glided smoothly to a stop in front of the elevator bank. Steve was out of the car and punching the up button before the driver had a chance to open the door for him. 

“Hey,” Tony said, catching up with him. “Look, I know you want us all to be one big happy family—”

“It’s not about what I want,” Steve said tersely, and Tony couldn’t figure out if he was mad at him specifically or just upset about the situation in general. Sometimes all that old-fashioned “chin-up” and “roll with the punches” stuff was hard to get a read on. 

The elevator doors slid open and everyone stepped inside. 

“Okay, but—” Tony started.

“Welcome back, sir,” JARVIS interrupted.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said impatiently. “I’m just saying—” 

“I should inform you that there has been an unauthorized override of security protocols,” JARVIS said mildly, as if he were simply reporting that breakfast would be delayed. 

“WHAT?” Tony yelped. “How? What kind of override?” 

By then, the elevator had already reached Tony’s penthouse. Stupid super-fast elevators. Why did he ever think they were a good idea? 

The doors opened. 

Nick Fury stood in the foyer waiting for them, his hands clasped behind his back and an expression of dark amusement on his face. 

“Jesus,” Tony gasped, letting out a breath. “You guys _really_ need to stop doing that. You know I have a heart condition, right?”

“Director Fury,” Steve said, nodding curtly at Fury. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk,” Fury said.

“Yeah? Well, _I_ need a drink,” Tony said, walking past Fury. He went straight for the bar and reached for the decanter of scotch. “Anyone else?” he asked, because he was nothing if not a good host. The only response he got was a bunch of scowls, which he chose to interpret as a no. 

He carried his glass over to the couch sank down into the cushions, propping his feet up on the coffee table. If he was going to talk to Fury, he was going to make damn sure the bastard knew he wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

The others had followed him in from the foyer, but they were all hovering uneasily around the edges of the room. Only Fury chose to sit. He lowered himself onto the couch across from Tony and leaned back, stretching his arms out along the tops of the cushions as if he were settling in to watch a football game. And then he smiled.

Touche.

Tony rolled his eyes and sipped at his scotch. “Well?” he said, glancing impatiently at his watch. “Were you waiting for me to offer you tea or something? In case you hadn’t heard we’ve had kind of a long night. Helping people, saving lives. Superheroing. You know how it goes”

Fury’s smile shifted into something humorless. “Barton and Romanoff didn’t have anything to do with planting those bugs,” he said. 

“Seriously?” Tony said irritably. “Thanks for the news flash, Chief, but that’s information we could have used _yesterday._ ”

“Then you admit you are responsible for this treachery?” Thor demanded. 

“It was a calculated risk,” Fury said carefully.

“You mean a mistake,” Tony said. “And then you figured, hey, might as well fess up since you were busted anyway.”

Fury shrugged. “I think it’s fair to say there’s been a lack of trust on both sides.”

“Tell us plainly: are Barton and Romanoff working for you?” Thor asked.

“No,” Fury said. He paused. “But it’s no accident I let them go when I did.”

“You wanted them on the team,” Steve said, pacing around the edges of the room. “You fired them hoping we’d take them on.” He stopped and looked at Fury. “Why?”

Fury’s gaze went to Tony. “You didn’t want SHIELD involved. Those were your terms. That we butt out and let you people run things as you saw fit.”

“And you agreed to those terms,” Tony reminded him.

“You couldn’t even keep your shit together long enough to run your father’s company,” Fury told him. He jerked his thumb in the direction of Steve and Thor. “These two know about as much about twenty-first century geo-politics as my big toe. And that one,” he nodded at Bruce, “goes on a murderous rampage whenever he gets stressed. So pardon me if I wanted to make sure there were some fucking professionals at the wheel.”

“That’s… actually not the worst reasoning I’ve ever heard,” Tony admitted grudgingly.

“Did they know?” Steve asked. “Barton and Romanoff. Did they know why they were here?”

“They’re espionage experts,” Fury said dryly. “I can’t say with any certainty what they did or didn’t know. But if you’re asking if I _told_ them, the answer’s no.”

“So they are innocent in all this,” Thor said.

“Ish,” Tony corrected. He wasn’t prepared to ascribe the word “innocent” to anything those two did. 

“You people didn’t really think we were going to let you run around in your capes doing whatever the hell you wanted, did you?” Fury asked. 

“He’s actually the only one with a cape,” Tony said, inclining his head at Thor. 

“I don’t know what world you live in,” Fury said, “but I live in the real world. And in the real world every action has consequences, consequences that affect everyone _else_ in that world. In the real world, the only way to stay on top of all the bad guys trying to sow chaos out of civilization is by sharing information and resources with your allies. You need us, gentlemen, just as much as we need you.”

“He’s right,” Steve said. “If it wasn’t for SHIELD, we wouldn’t have known about the Chitauri attack until it was too late.”

“If it wasn’t for SHIELD’s experiments with the Tesseract there wouldn’t have _been_ a Chitauri attack,” Tony snapped, swinging his feet to the floor and sitting upright. He’d had just about as much as he could take of Fury’s holier-than-thou attitude.

Fury fixed Tony with a steely, one-eyed glare. “Do I really need to remind you that it was _your father’s_ idea to harness the power of the Tesseract?” He turned to Steve. “Or that we only recovered the damn thing because _your friend_ Howard Stark was searching for _you?_ ” And then he swiveled to Thor. “Not to mention, it wouldn’t have even _been here_ in the first place if Asgard hadn’t treated the earth like their own personal Barbie Dream House.”

He let that sink in for a moment before continuing. “Like it or not, we’re all in this together. We are all culpable in this mess. And we’ve all made our share of mistakes.”

“Some more than others,” Tony muttered.

Fury ignored him. “But when it comes right down to it, we all want the same thing: to protect this planet and the people living on it.” He got to his feet and cast his eye around the room, silently challenging each of them. 

“Or maybe you don’t,” he continued. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re just in this to get your rocks off, or to feed your egos, or hell, I don’t know, because you like running around in pretty tights. You’ll have to make up your own minds about that.” He paused. “Let me know when you do.” 

Tony watched Fury stride out of the room. He had to give the guy credit, it was a great fucking exit. Tony had tried for exits that dramatic, but never really seemed hit the mark. Something to do with gravitas, he suspected, or the lack thereof. 

“Why do I feel like I just got reprimanded by the principal?” he said when Fury was gone.

“Because that’s pretty much what just happened,” Steve replied wryly.

“Ooookay,” Tony said, scratching his chest. He still had the taste of dust from the accident site in his mouth and the smell of the hospital in his nose and what he really wanted to do was take a shower and then crawl into bed—preferably a bed with Pepper in it. But he was pretty sure neither of those things were going to be happening anytime soon. “What now?” he asked with a sigh.

“We vote,” Steve said. “On whether we want to collaborate with SHIELD.”

“You mean whether we want to put ourselves under SHIELD’s thumb,” Tony amended. “Because that’s what we’re really talking about. You know that, right?”

“Whether we want to _collaborate_ with SHIELD,” Steve repeated stubbornly. “And whether we still want Clint and Natasha on the team.” 

“Is it not the same thing?” Thor asked.

“No,” Steve said. “It’s not.”

Tony wasn’t sure that was true. But he was no longer sure it _wasn’t_ true, either.

“I want in,” Bruce said suddenly.

Tony’s head whipped around to stare at him. “On the vote? Because unless you’re on the team…”

“I want on the team,” Bruce said. “Assuming the invitation’s still open, that is.” 

“Of course it is,” Steve told him. 

“Right,” Tony said, not bothering to hide his grin. “So how do we do this? Show of hands or secret ballot?”

They took Clint back into surgery first thing in the morning. 

Left to her own devices, Natasha wound up aimlessly wandering the halls of the hospital until she stumbled across a vending machine. She pressed her forehead against the glass and stared at the stale, cellophane-wrapped snack foods with a mixture of disbelief and horror. Sno Balls. Donettes. Crunch ’n Munch. Why they didn’t stock these things with anything that resembled actual food?

“You planning on buying something, Agent, or you just gonna make out with it?”

Natasha didn’t turn around. “I’m not your agent anymore,” she told Fury. 

“Always been partial to Cheez-Its, myself,” he said.

“I don’t eat fake cheese,” Natasha replied.

“In that case, try this.” 

She sensed rather than saw the movement as he tossed something her way. Natasha spun and snatched a shiny red apple out of the air. 

Fury looked her up and down with a critical eye. “You look like shit.”

“It’s been a long night.” She tossed the apple in the air, catching it again in the palm of her hand, and thought about how satisfying it would be to wing it straight into Fury’s face. She was pretty sure she could break his nose from here. 

He smiled mirthlessly. “So I heard.”

She tossed the apple again and caught it, her fingernails digging crescents into the tender skin. “What do you want?”

“Come on,” Fury said, turning and walking off down the hall. “Let’s find someplace private to talk.”

Clint’s first reaction was to laugh. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

Natasha shrugged. “He’s Fury,” she said, as if that was all that needed to be said.

He was still feeling a little fuzzy from the anesthesia, but he wasn’t so out of it that he couldn’t appreciate the absurdity of the situation. “So he thinks he can just strut in here, offer us our jobs back and we’ll come running? Is that it?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” She was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him with what he’d come to recognize as her concerned face. He’d been seeing a lot of her concerned face lately. She always seemed to be trying to gauge his reactions, evaluating him for signs of weakness. And he’d probably been giving her plenty.

Clint felt a sudden wave of nausea. He swallowed the bile in the back of his throat and reached for the cup of water on the rolling table.

“You don’t have to say yes,” Natasha pointed out. 

Sure he didn’t. He could fuck off back to the cabin and start drinking himself into a stupor all over again. Because that worked out so well the last time.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Hill?” he asked, the question that had been festering since yesterday.

Natasha hesitated. “Because I knew you’d get upset about it,” she said finally. 

He shook his head. “So? You really think I’m that fragile, that you have to protect me?”

She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer. Which was all the answer he needed, really.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he said. “Seriously? What did you think I was gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” she said flatly. “Maybe something rash like throwing yourself into an avalanche.”

Clint grunted, which was about as close as he was willing to come to admitting she might have a point. “You still should have told me about Hill,” he groused.

They were both quiet for a while. And then Natasha said, “What about the Avengers?”

“What about them?” he said, not looking at her.

“You still want to quit?”

It hurt to admit it, but he’d kind of liked being one of Avengers. They weren’t all that bad, once you got used to them, and it hadn’t been the worst, feeling like he was part of a team. Until it had all gone to shit. He supposed that had been inevitable, though, really.

But then helping those people at that accident site… that had felt genuinely good—better than anything had felt for a long time. 

He stared down at his shattered leg, which was starting to hurt like a motherfucker. “I don’t know.”

“You want to go back to SHIELD?” Natasha asked.

He’d at least been good at being a SHIELD agent. Damn good, actually. And it had given him a purpose, even if the job could be pretty murky sometimes. But did he really want to go crawling back there after everything that had happened? Did he want to be somewhere he obviously wasn’t wanted? Because that was the real problem. He didn’t seem to be wanted anywhere.

“I don’t know.” Clint squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck.” He really wasn’t feeling up to making major life decisions at the moment. “What do _you_ want to do?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Natasha said. 

He cracked one eye open so he could look at her. “Of course it matters.”

She shook her head, her expression hard. “I go where you go.” Her voice sounded tight. Strained. 

“Tasha—” 

“Don’t,” she told him. “Don’t say anything or I swear to god I will kill you with my bare hands.”

He felt his mouth curve into a smirk, despite his better judgement. “You love me.”

It was a cruel thing to say—love was weakness as far as Natasha was concerned—but that didn’t make it any less true. 

Her eyes flashed dangerously. “I warned you, Barton…”

“Okay,” he said putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I take it back.”

But he couldn’t seem to stop smiling. He laid his hand down on the mattress so that his fingertips were touching hers. She looked away. Then she linked her hand with his, her slim, delicate fingers slipping between his and squeezing, just a little.

The tightness he’d been carrying in his chest finally started to relax a little. There was one place he was still wanted, after all.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to get this last chapter up. It's ridiculous to make you wait so long for this final little bit, but Christmas happened, and relatives, and then I had a brainstorm for another project that totally demanded my attention ... in other words: life. But it's finally done and I did it. Thanks for reading, everyone! Peace out.

_ “If the sum of external forces acting on a fluid element is zero, the fluid will be either at rest or moving as a solid body—in either case we say that the fluid element is in equilibrium.” _

 

“Cap, what’s your twenty?” Tony asked over the comms. “Nevermind,” he added a moment later when he saw a familiar flash of red, white, and blue arcing across the sky. He winced as Steve came to an ungainly landing in a snow drift. At least Tony hoped it was snow and not solid ice. “You okay, Cap?” he asked.

“Fine,” came Steve’s grunted reply. “Anyone got eyes on the target?” 

Tony shot up into the air and twisted to survey the area. “Thor, coming in from your four o’clock.” 

Only belatedly did it occur to Tony that Thor didn’t really have the hang of orienting himself according to earth timepieces. Thor spun the wrong direction and was promptly run down from behind by a big green blur. The Hulk didn’t even slow down, just kept right on on going as Thor was tossed into the air like a crash test dummy on a catapult. 

“Anyone besides me noticed we’re getting our asses kicked?” Tony said. “Whose idea was this, anyway?”

“That would be me,” he heard Natasha say. He had no idea where she was. Or how she could so effectively hide her bright red hair and black catsuit in the middle of a snowy-white landscape. 

“That’s right, it’s all coming back to me now,” Tony said. “ _Let’s take the Hulk to Antarctica,_ she said. _It’ll be fun,_ she said.”

“This isn’t fun?” Natasha asked dryly.

“I’m having a great time,” Barton piped up. 

Tony rolled his eyes, even though no one could see it. “Of course _you’re_ having fun, Ahab. You’re kicking back in a nice warm room, watching everything over the video feeds.”

“What’s Hulk doing?” Steve asked, always the good little boy scout who refused to get distracted from work by anything as irresponsible as fun.

There was a brief pause followed by a snort of laughter, and then Barton said: “At the moment, chasing penguins. Looks like he’s having fun, too.”

“I am having much fun as well!” Thor announced, having picked himself up off the ground. “Perhaps the Man of Iron would enjoy himself more if he were to engage the Hulk in battle directly rather than hovering in the air above the fray.”

“Did Thor just call Iron Man a coward?” Natasha asked. “Because it sounded to me like Thor just called Iron Man a coward.”

“I’ll have you know I was up here formulating a plan,” Tony snapped. 

“Hope it’s a good one,” Clint said. “’Cause Hulk got tired of the penguins. Incoming from the northeast.”

“See that ridge about 200 meters south of here?” Tony said. “I need you guys to lure the big guy up there.”

The Hulk was making another beeline for Thor, but the Norseman flew up into the air, trying to lure him in the direction of the ridge. The Hulk followed him a little ways, then gave up in frustration and started looking around for another target. Which is when Captain America leapt out in front of him and took off running. Hulk roared after him, gaining a little more ground with every thunderous step. Just when he was about to catch up to Cap, Black Widow popped up out of nowhere and executed a seriously impressive series of flips, launching up herself into the air and off the top of a very surprised Hulk’s head. The green guy forgot all about Captain America and took off after Widow, who’d already vaulted her way up onto the top of the ridge. She spun around to face the behemoth bearing down on her but held her ground, calmly staring into the oncoming storm. In the moment just before the Hulk reached her, Thor swooped in, grabbed her, and flew her up out of the Hulk’s reach. 

Which was Tony’s cue. The Hulk was standing right on top of the ridge, just like he’d wanted, so Tony poured all the power in the suit into the thrusters and aimed himself on a collision course. The Hulk seemed to sense his approach at the last second but by then it was too late. Tony plowed into him at full speed, sending the Hulk flying over the top of the ridge and crashing down into the canyon 400 feet below—the one Tony had spied from the air earlier.

Tony came to a wobbly landing and collapsed on the ground, his head ringing from the impact. 

“Not so bad,” Maria Hill’s voice cut in over their comms. “Bit of a rocky start, but you managed to pull it together there at the end.”

“I’m sorry, that transmission didn’t come through clearly,” Tony said, still grimacing. “I’m assuming what you meant to say, Agent Hill, is that we were _awesome._ ”

“Uh huh,” Hill replied humorlessly. “Let’s call it day and pack it in. SHIELD Ops, deploy the Hulk retrieval team.”

“Above the fray,” Tony muttered. “I’ll show you above the fray.”

“Are you seriously trying to take the credit after we did all the hard work?” Natasha said.

“ _You_ did all the hard work?” Tony replied, incredulous. “I’m the one that hit him. _With my head._ ”

“It was a team effort,” Steve interjected. “Everyone deserves a share of the credit.”

“Sure,” Tony said. “If by everyone, you mean me.”

“Stark,” Steve said in that schoolmarm voice he only ever seemed to use on Tony. Tony hated that voice. Mostly because it always worked on him.

“Sorry,” Tony said flatly. “Obviously I meant rah rah rah, go Team Avengers. Hooray.” 

“Clint didn’t really do anything,” Natasha pointed out. “I don’t think he should get any credit.”

“Hey!” Clint protested half-heartedly. “I was the lookout. It’s a very important job.”

“What’s the score on the Phillies game?” she asked.

“Cards are up 4-1 in the top of the sixth,” he answered automatically. “Uh, I mean, I have no idea, I’m obviously way too busy right now to watch a baseball game.”

“All right, enough,” Steve said sounding more amused than annoyed. “We all worked hard … except maybe Barton—” 

“Hey!” Barton protested again. “Gimme a break, I’m still on the DL.”

“I think we should celebrate,” Steve finished. 

“An excellent suggestion!” said Thor. “In Asgard, after a great battle we would cut off the heads of our enemies and drink a toast of victory from their hollowed out skulls!”

“Wow, _that_ sounds great,” Tony said. “We should definitely save that for a special occasion.” 

“I was thinking something more like a foosball tournament,” Steve said. 

“I am in favor of foosball!” Thor announced.

“How about a foosball tournament with strippers?” Tony suggested.

“I am also in favor of strippers!” Thor declared.

“No strippers,” Steve said firmly.

“A margarita machine?” Tony tried.

“Fine,” Steve said, sighing audibly.

“Sweet!” Clint said. “Count me in.”

“I call dibs on kicking Stark’s ass first,” Natasha said.

“Oh, it’s on, Romanoff,” Tony said. “Hey, you guys think we should bring one of these penguins back for Bruce?”

“Sounds like an excellent idea,” Barton said.

“Definitely,” Natasha said.

“Last one back to the helicarrier has to explain the penguin to Fury,” Tony said, grinning.

Once upon a time there were a bunch of strangers with some freaky superpowers who came together to save the world. And sometimes, when they weren’t saving the world, they’d hang out and watch movies and play foosball and drink margaritas. They also might have a pet penguin, but don’t tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because Nick Fury said he wasn’t going to cover their asses on that one if they got caught. 

The end.


End file.
